dearest all-
so we've made it to the home stretch of my 7th first year of school! huzzah! and quite a first year it's been. but there's lots more this month, and suddenly it doesn't help that april is much shorter than march ("ask me about my 'march as the longest month in the world' theory!")
here's a brief list of things left on the old "to-do" list:
1) 2 data methods homeworks (this is the same class where, after spending about 10 days straight working on the first homework, having roughly 3 breakdowns, having my first second thought on heading back to school, i turned in a 20-page masterpiece. with much thanks to pretty much everyone i went to help for.)
2) 1 data methods take-home final
3) like about 3 GIS projects
4) like about 1 GIS paper
5) two finals
6) one dissertation proposal
7) one dissertation proposal presentation
and there's some things missing too. and did i mention this all gets done by 1 may 2007?
and why 1 may 2007? well... i'm going to the cayman islands! i'm going to the cayman islands!
as mentioned in this space, i mentioned that i "might be" going to the cayman islands the first week of may to do a little practice research. sound exciting? it is! here's the game plan: fly from texass to nyc on 2 may. do something there. on 3 may (5:45am!!! agh!) fly to cayman islands. do SCIENCE! until about 8 may. fly back to nyc. meet special co-traveler and head to france to start my summer vacation! yeah!
and that's not all! after hanging out with the clan in paris (sis-in-law better dr. carr is celebrating her birthday there that weekend!) and heading to a chateau for a wedding, we're shuffling north to ireland (where we may meet up with brother euge who is kicking off his summer research by going to london for some archiving...) and then it's back to france and then nyc. now beautiful co-traveler heads back home to st.croix where the good puppy rowan awaits and i kick around for a few more days in new england with the clan some more. i'm guessing some sailing and golf. when i finally get back to texass, may will be over and my summer work schedule will begin.
do i know what i'm doing this summer? no. am i heading to antigua? no idea. am i getting paid? yes!
so to boil it down, i've gone and condensed roughly 7 weeks of classwork into about 4 just so that i can sip lattes on the siene with my brother and his family, whisper sweet nothings and hold hands with the beautiful co-traveler along the left bank, kayak in the bordeaux region, go diving for "work" in the cayman islands, drink with brother euge in the homeland, and hang out with family and friends in new england (including a supposed memorial day party with slider and wonderful wife jenna r. of honolulu, hi). is this all a lot and a bit confusing? yes and yes! but i'm looking forward to it...
if you want postcards, now's the time to send me a quick note!
hugs and kisses-
goose
APRIL FOOL'S SHOUT-OUTS:
happy NFW!!! shout-out to T3 and his uber-awesome wife Joy S. of Jersey City, NJ! big news (and this considering that tough tyson won $50k on "millionaire" last month) is that he's moving to austin, texas (note the spelling difference between there and the rest of texass...) the pilot side of life will be based at the san antonio airport, but will live in austin so joy can work on her master's degree at UT. the college roommate side of life, and his roommate will finally have a reason to hit up austin, easily described by several people as "the only reason to go to texas". to say the least, i'm looking forward to seeing them (including this weekend while they house shop...)
happy B2B champs shout-out to Big Moe of St. Croix, VI. the UFlorida alum and huge gator fan was notably excited about the ncaa win over the weekend. based on how gadofful the games were, he might be the only one. i can't recall being so unexcited about a final four in a long time. though i am already looking forward to next year for usc. and maybe for the first time in 15 years (it has been that long, mr. harold miner...) usc basketball might have some swagger.
happy "go retire you blowhard!" shout-out to cbs analyst billy packer. though i have friends inside the sports journalism industry (including a few who are just now beginning to make the national scene...), i never get why the crappiest guys get the biggest events. i understand that when fox shows the world series, we need to have fox correspondents, but does it have to be joe buck and tim mccarver? same goes for cbs final four. billy packer is horrid. when will sports producers get that they should get some enthusiasm and excitement on the television that matches the excitement me and my friends have for the events. instead, we get vermin and self-promoters. solution? why not do an "american idol" style competition where we can vote for the best? i think that's fair and would drum up some publicity.
happy "welcome back spring time!" to all my fellow cubs fans! following the garbage that was the final four blow-outs, finally we can turn to the beautiful pasttime that is cubs baseball. and though they lost on opening day, they did win today and are still on pace for .500!!! which would be a godsend after last season's trainwreck. so, dear old dad, good dr. carr, bryan g., lech n., and stephen b., CUBS IN 2007!!!
happy "1st birthday and last one in erie, pa!" to little man atticus l. of aforementioned erie, pa. his pops, dear friend clayter l. is taking a job in florida, which means that they suffered through a full erie winter before leaving. the photos of said party were excellent and, between his and the nieces, it looks like all the cool kids are using blue frosting mudmasks this season!
and finally, if you want a good gift idea for your mom (and you should!) i can't recommend proflowers.com enough. now i know not all mom's are gardeners, and i know that i usually don't prescribe people to do anything, but the operation is class-act. my mom said the packaging was very classy and they actually (without any prompting from me) sent me a note on the day it was delivered so i could call home and win the brownie points while they were still hot from the oven!
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
balancing an egg and other ways to amuse the irish
dearest all-
and a happy spring solstice to everyone! i've already celebrated by successfully balancing a raw, uncooked (refrigerated) egg on its end, as urban legend dictates. what was extra exciting was that brother euge, gallant roommate and fellow monk, had never heard of this and, given the choice of watching me balance said egg or writing a quick review paper for a topic that sucked eggs for a class that sucks dozens of eggs, he chose the former. it was a scintillating good time! for at least five minutes...
since people have been clamoring to hear about the monastery's st.patrick's day here in glorious texas, i will oblige. we didn't do anything.
okay, that's not exactly true. as mentioned in this space previously, i had a wonderful guest stay for the weekend, having turned down the opportunity to party out on st.croix and their stx. pat's parade. we had a great time, bbq-ing, riding horses, going to a nice fancy dinner (and promptly breaking the lenten rule of 'no meat fridays' with a delicious chateaubriand for two! yum!), and watching a bit of usc basketball (their magical ride continues after the blow-out win over texas on sunday...). somewhere in all that was a departmental st.pat's party. 1) we made a great guinness stew. 2) we went to party where they had great corned beef. 3) we went home sometime around 9pm. including brother euge, who has been fighting a terrible stomach bug, including suffering through bouts of illness that leave me wiping tears from my eyes after fits of convulsive, juvenile laughter. so that was it. fairly amazing how sedate it was. i trust that you, dear reader, made up for it.
but now, break is over and we're back to the grind. school ends in just 6.5 weeks. and somewhere in that time are a bunch of assignments and papers, including one that got taken to the woodshed last night during a massive editing session. joan rivers has had less work done on her than this badboy. and so that's where i now turn my attention. stay tuned for some late march shout-outs, an autopsy of the ncaa tourney, an idea on how to improve sports on television, and the start of cubs baseball!
--goose
and a happy spring solstice to everyone! i've already celebrated by successfully balancing a raw, uncooked (refrigerated) egg on its end, as urban legend dictates. what was extra exciting was that brother euge, gallant roommate and fellow monk, had never heard of this and, given the choice of watching me balance said egg or writing a quick review paper for a topic that sucked eggs for a class that sucks dozens of eggs, he chose the former. it was a scintillating good time! for at least five minutes...
since people have been clamoring to hear about the monastery's st.patrick's day here in glorious texas, i will oblige. we didn't do anything.
okay, that's not exactly true. as mentioned in this space previously, i had a wonderful guest stay for the weekend, having turned down the opportunity to party out on st.croix and their stx. pat's parade. we had a great time, bbq-ing, riding horses, going to a nice fancy dinner (and promptly breaking the lenten rule of 'no meat fridays' with a delicious chateaubriand for two! yum!), and watching a bit of usc basketball (their magical ride continues after the blow-out win over texas on sunday...). somewhere in all that was a departmental st.pat's party. 1) we made a great guinness stew. 2) we went to party where they had great corned beef. 3) we went home sometime around 9pm. including brother euge, who has been fighting a terrible stomach bug, including suffering through bouts of illness that leave me wiping tears from my eyes after fits of convulsive, juvenile laughter. so that was it. fairly amazing how sedate it was. i trust that you, dear reader, made up for it.
but now, break is over and we're back to the grind. school ends in just 6.5 weeks. and somewhere in that time are a bunch of assignments and papers, including one that got taken to the woodshed last night during a massive editing session. joan rivers has had less work done on her than this badboy. and so that's where i now turn my attention. stay tuned for some late march shout-outs, an autopsy of the ncaa tourney, an idea on how to improve sports on television, and the start of cubs baseball!
--goose
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
it's the ides of march somewhere!
dearest all-
so while it may not be 15 march 2007 here (and by here i mean gloriously soggy east-central texas), it is 15 march 2007 somewhere (and by somewhere i mean gloriously exotic guam!) which means exactly ONE THING:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SKYLAR C.!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARIANNA C.!!!
one whole year old today! kinda! as i mentioned in the previous space, don't worry about the particulars of being born -5 GMT last year, but now being +10 GMT. that's a 15 GMT swing! and let's not even get into the whole "it was EST last year but now it's EDT on the ides!" which i think makes it a 14 hour swing...
either way, make a mess of some cake, have the pops and the mom read some shel s. and in general have a great birthday!
speaking of messes, i made a complete and utter mess of my early month shout-outs. to writ, this from devoted reader katie w. of los angeles, ca:
1 dark blue wool coat, size boys medium (presumed lost since some Sunday ca. 1987 when i was an altar boy, but maybe it's tucked in the back of the suv...)
1 key ring with keys to my apartment in new haven (presumed lost at some social function ca. 1999-2000...)
1 nice black leather jacket, sized mens ML (presumed given to my brother from his Philly days ca. 2003 but since lost to the winds of time. Note: one button is disturbingly loose and close to falling off...)
1 animal, stuffed, dog named "Freckles" (presumed given to some girlfriend ca. 1995 or possibly some other girlfriend ca. 1997...)
1 animal, stuffed, dog named "King Oliver" (presumed given to some other other girlfriend ca. 1999...)
1 US Minted bill, $20 (thought to have been given to a Hari Krishna ca. 1994, but may be behind the orange tree...)
A VERY SPECIAL FIRSTIE SHOUT-OUT TO Iceman, codename "Hambone" on his last spring break. to the dominican republic, no less! i've been there. too bad i forgot to tell you how to handle the bribe-seeking police and soldiers. If you see a gun: speak spanish and pay up. if you don't see a gun AND you're all alone on the road: i'd pay. if you don't see a gun AND you're in a city or there's lots of german tourists nearby: pretend to speak russian (i said different vodka names over and over again in a thick accent) and don't pay up. in between all that, enjoy the barcelo and brugal!
THE NCAA'S ARE HERE AND THAT MEANS ONE THING SHOUT-OUT TO: usc basketball! do i pick you to upset texas? or are you the proverbial "year away"? hmm... in related news, dear friend and self-described bball addict nara w. of los angeles is again forming "free" pools on various web sites, like espn and stuff. unlike last year, when he had about 5 of the 8 entries (and still managed to come in last...) he's gone legit and (so far) has only one bracket. of course, i will not be watching the action this weekend, as i have a very special guest arriving for the weekend. though it really is too bad that bravo (the town, not the tv station) isn't having their "running of the vacas" this weekend, i've managed to find the best paintball arena AND hog roping lessons in the greater brazos county. so she best be impressed!
and finally: IT'S CRICKET WORLD CUP SO GET IN ON THE ACTION SHOUT-OUT TO: the west indies team's big win over pakistan to start the tourney. pakistan has a legit team, but the windies went 241/9 to win by 54 wickets after pakistan's middle of the order bottomed out. in a blow-out, scotland got WAXED by australia, with MOM (man of the match) ricky ponting clearing a century as the aussies scored 314/10 to win by an astounding 203 runs. but the cricket moment of the day goes to ireland, courtesy room/office-mate eugene f. aka "the good irish lad". apparently, the irish cricket union forms from both rep.ireland ("the good ireland") and northern ireland ("absentee landlord bastards!") which is why they don't show the irish flag. though euge knows cricket, he was immediately turned off by the fact that the irish team fields: 4 guys from "the 6 counties" (aka northern ireland), 1 from south africa, 3 from australia, and 5 from dublin, including 2 sets of brothers. of the up-and-coming niall o'brien, euge said, "i bet he went to school at trinity. rich bastard." and once i noted the 2 sets of brothers, he said, "you sure they aren't husband and husband?" the rule, as always, don't bring up a divided ireland to eugene.
with that said, HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! pionta guinness, ar meisce!
so while it may not be 15 march 2007 here (and by here i mean gloriously soggy east-central texas), it is 15 march 2007 somewhere (and by somewhere i mean gloriously exotic guam!) which means exactly ONE THING:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SKYLAR C.!!!
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ARIANNA C.!!!
one whole year old today! kinda! as i mentioned in the previous space, don't worry about the particulars of being born -5 GMT last year, but now being +10 GMT. that's a 15 GMT swing! and let's not even get into the whole "it was EST last year but now it's EDT on the ides!" which i think makes it a 14 hour swing...
either way, make a mess of some cake, have the pops and the mom read some shel s. and in general have a great birthday!
speaking of messes, i made a complete and utter mess of my early month shout-outs. to writ, this from devoted reader katie w. of los angeles, ca:
I have to tell you I was greatly disappointed that Mommy W didn’t get a shoutout for finding your sweatshirt in the depths of
it was indeed a grand oversight. with that said, onto the ides shout-outs!
BELATED SHOUT-OUTS 2x to MW of aforementioned los angeles, ca. for finding my usc sweatshirt and getting it back to me. well, it hasn't arrived yet but i'm sure it's somewhere. and that's what's important! not to mention, as devoted fans of troy, i'm certain they are excited to remove all elements of goose from said premises. i leave my sweatshirt in their "car" (that is so not an apt description for their family vehicle) and usc goes and loses the next week to fucla. unacceptable. but given the good fortune and my long-standing habit of "leaving" things about "Fort W", perhaps they have come across:1 dark blue wool coat, size boys medium (presumed lost since some Sunday ca. 1987 when i was an altar boy, but maybe it's tucked in the back of the suv...)
1 key ring with keys to my apartment in new haven (presumed lost at some social function ca. 1999-2000...)
1 nice black leather jacket, sized mens ML (presumed given to my brother from his Philly days ca. 2003 but since lost to the winds of time. Note: one button is disturbingly loose and close to falling off...)
1 animal, stuffed, dog named "Freckles" (presumed given to some girlfriend ca. 1995 or possibly some other girlfriend ca. 1997...)
1 animal, stuffed, dog named "King Oliver" (presumed given to some other other girlfriend ca. 1999...)
1 US Minted bill, $20 (thought to have been given to a Hari Krishna ca. 1994, but may be behind the orange tree...)
A VERY SPECIAL FIRSTIE SHOUT-OUT TO Iceman, codename "Hambone" on his last spring break. to the dominican republic, no less! i've been there. too bad i forgot to tell you how to handle the bribe-seeking police and soldiers. If you see a gun: speak spanish and pay up. if you don't see a gun AND you're all alone on the road: i'd pay. if you don't see a gun AND you're in a city or there's lots of german tourists nearby: pretend to speak russian (i said different vodka names over and over again in a thick accent) and don't pay up. in between all that, enjoy the barcelo and brugal!
THE NCAA'S ARE HERE AND THAT MEANS ONE THING SHOUT-OUT TO: usc basketball! do i pick you to upset texas? or are you the proverbial "year away"? hmm... in related news, dear friend and self-described bball addict nara w. of los angeles is again forming "free" pools on various web sites, like espn and stuff. unlike last year, when he had about 5 of the 8 entries (and still managed to come in last...) he's gone legit and (so far) has only one bracket. of course, i will not be watching the action this weekend, as i have a very special guest arriving for the weekend. though it really is too bad that bravo (the town, not the tv station) isn't having their "running of the vacas" this weekend, i've managed to find the best paintball arena AND hog roping lessons in the greater brazos county. so she best be impressed!
and finally: IT'S CRICKET WORLD CUP SO GET IN ON THE ACTION SHOUT-OUT TO: the west indies team's big win over pakistan to start the tourney. pakistan has a legit team, but the windies went 241/9 to win by 54 wickets after pakistan's middle of the order bottomed out. in a blow-out, scotland got WAXED by australia, with MOM (man of the match) ricky ponting clearing a century as the aussies scored 314/10 to win by an astounding 203 runs. but the cricket moment of the day goes to ireland, courtesy room/office-mate eugene f. aka "the good irish lad". apparently, the irish cricket union forms from both rep.ireland ("the good ireland") and northern ireland ("absentee landlord bastards!") which is why they don't show the irish flag. though euge knows cricket, he was immediately turned off by the fact that the irish team fields: 4 guys from "the 6 counties" (aka northern ireland), 1 from south africa, 3 from australia, and 5 from dublin, including 2 sets of brothers. of the up-and-coming niall o'brien, euge said, "i bet he went to school at trinity. rich bastard." and once i noted the 2 sets of brothers, he said, "you sure they aren't husband and husband?" the rule, as always, don't bring up a divided ireland to eugene.
with that said, HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY! pionta guinness, ar meisce!
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
the spring break buzz and special shoutouts galore!
dearest all!
so the weather is a'changing! hurray! and as several relatives inquired, the bluebonnets may or may not be a'blooming. i've googled them and am now on the lookout for the state flower of texas.
however, the live oak is a'pollinating. thanks to the great care of dr. weldon, board-certified allergsit, i am currently allergy-free. awesome! i can't believe it! i just want to thank dr. weldon, flonase, allegra, zyrtec, loratidine, allavert, claritin, that epi-shot, my mom, HI MOM! my dad, HI DAD! GO CUBS!, Andre Dawson's mvp season, and the guys over at pixar animation, especially John Lasseter. It was his vision and drive that took a story of a little orphaned fish and brought it to life and it was his... *blink* wait a second... ok, i'm back.
anyhoo, i'm allergy-free. woohoo! steroids! though my car, freshly washed, is practically green from the pollen.
so as many of you know, the life of the PhD student has its ebbs and flows. there's periods of intense boredom balanced by insane stretches of 12-16 hour days trying to teach yourself computer programming (my latest 18-page homework...) or pouring (or is it poring?) through a number of papers just before class in case you get called on. and invariably, i do get called on. so how do i do it? i've invented games and diversions that distract me from the stress but allow me to gain focus when needed. even if focus and diversions are needed in the middle of a tiresome lecture or class. and this semester, there seems to be a plethora. a plethora? si, el guapo, i'd say a plethora... reasons abound, but the general point, as was made by roommate and good irishman eugene f. is that "you're working on why your here and everything else is becoming worthless!" well, i wouldn't go so far as to say worthless, but lots of this is seemingly irrelevant. so to take my mind off of irrelevant topics, i've gone and replaced them with other irelevancies.
for example, i can name all 43 presidents (well, 42, but grover cleveland counts twice since he served non-consecutively). i compulsively draw anatomically correct sharks (always facing left for some reason), semi-anatomically correct mermaids, fairly recognizable swans (but not ducks...). i've named all 32 nfl teams by division, correctly named the predicted 25-man roster for the chicago cubs, came up with nearly all 20 teams in the premiership (i got to 16 without a problem, then incorrectly named derby county who is residing in the first division ranks), memorized the countries of europe (not hard), asia (more difficult, especially all the n-stans), and africa (damn near impossible unless i guess right on the sequence of benin, togo, mali). i discovered that ecuador is a pretty small country but that el salvador is down-right tiny. i've examined river deltas in the black sea and the sea of japan. i've pondered the ideal proportion of coffee beans to cups of water (well above 1tsp. per cup or whatever the joke standard is). and just yesterday, i had an impromptu soccer party in the office as liverpool played barcelona in the european cup (we had 5 guys huddled around the computer). which is to say that i feel like i have a ton of spare time (why else would i be writing this?). throw in my daily comics, my late-night "topkat" viewing (such a good cartoon!), fark.com, and random sites to just stare at in disbelief (try out conservapedia.com for a good idea of what it's like to be me just shaking my head and saying, "are they serious? are they %$#* serious?!! no way..." and then spending a good hour trying to rediscover the beauty of the human mind and spirit as captured by youtube (search for flamboyantly gay soccer referee). as you can see, 24 hours ain't nearly enough some days and i oftentimes think, "am i about where i should be?" and then as i flip to check the answers to the sudoku, i say, "maybe."
but in truth, there's much going on and as we head towards that beautiful thing called spring break, i'm pretty well ahead at least in terms of becoming the conceptual PhD student than i was even in January. I can't imagine how i sounded in meetings last fall. "i want to study. Fish." just today, i outlined my 7 chapters of dissertation (background, benthic assessment, fish behavior, fish migration, fishery market analysis, tourism analysis, education) and was shocked to realize that despite the 234 games of cribbage i've played on my computer (compiling a healthy 125-109 record) not to mention learning bridge, euchre, and way too much time on the game who shalt not be named, i'm quietly morphing. it's fun to do science! hurray!
so what does this mean for my spring break? well, having just suited up the lab with insane dive gear (thank you!) and about to hook up some high-def video cameras for chapter 7 - goose makes a documentary, i get to get down to what i enjoy most about school: my work. though i have yet to dive, or even get out of greater pecos county, the thought that i get to shake off silly homework assignments to write chapter proposals and dream of far-off antigua, is enough to make a boy giddy.
and with that off my chest, on with the shout-outs!
happy 50k shout-out to T3 of Jersey City, NJ. with beautiful wifey Joy S. in the audience, T3 took home $50,000 from Who Wants to Be A Millionaire this past week. As mentioned previously, i was his phone-a-friend and as it turned out, helped him on what turned out to be the last question he answered. they really threw some tough ones at him once he got to $8000. and truth be told, though i sounded smart on tv (though T3, i do "marine geography" not "marine biology"... ahem!) the absolutely ONLY question i would have gotten was the one that i got the call for. so as my mom would say, "the luck of the goose continues on!" so congrats T3! you and Joysiloo enjoy that down payment on the house. and in case you read this humble submission, i want to let you know formally that i do not want / expect / need any sort of percentage of winnings. well, at least i don't want or expect them. in fact, if you must do anything at all, if you feel totally compelled to shower mr. "knows accident statistics involving deer" with gratitude, i hereby accept a nice little double-date at say gramercy tavern? i'll get the tip even! they recommend getting reservations a full month (or more!) in advance. i'll let you know. that is, if you're interested.
on a side note: happy "what a coincidence!" to uncle nick and aunt stef. while trying to come up with the info on the gramercy tavern, i discovered that in penn plaza there's another steakhouse called "stef and nick's!" if i get there, you'll get a postcard!
happy 1st birthday wishes to the darling ones: the little lasses skylar and arianna turn 1 on the ides of march! question to my brother the good dr. carr and his amazing wife, the better dr. carr, "if they were born in philadelphia but guam is a day ahead, are you going to celebrate local time or eastern standard time OR the new improved eastern daylight time which arrives this coming weekend for the first time ever? questions questions questions. of course, it'd be no big deal, but as it's their first and they only get 1 first birthday, uncle goose says, "follow my lead, ladies and have a birthday week!" HUZZAH!
happy spring training to all fellow cubs fans: dear old dad, the aforementioned good dr. carr, lech n. of berkeley, bryan g. of eastern iowa, and... is that all of us? geez... altogether now: "CUBS IN 2007!!!"
nice "extension of the blog to get printed in the paper!" shout-out to dear friend slider's younger brother "hambone" aka cougar aka sundown of annapolis, md. the local paper back home has little columns and after the soldier in afghanistan was told to stop writing his, our man on the scene hambone was all over it. though i should warn you hambone, NOBODY outside the age range of say 19-34 gets the mariokart reference. nobody. i recommend dropping "semi-anatomically correct mermaids" as a populist appeal to the readership of theday.com...
and finally: happy spring break to everyone! i fully understand my responsibility as one of the few remaining people out there with break rights (hambone and dr. lw notwithstanding, of course). i will be sure to revel for each of you and yours! and having discovered (although yet to be re-tested) that i may not be allergic to alleve*, i say, "bring on the guinness and the hangovers!" HUZZAH!
*at least to 200mg when taken in 2 separate 75mg and 125mg doses...
=goose=
so the weather is a'changing! hurray! and as several relatives inquired, the bluebonnets may or may not be a'blooming. i've googled them and am now on the lookout for the state flower of texas.
however, the live oak is a'pollinating. thanks to the great care of dr. weldon, board-certified allergsit, i am currently allergy-free. awesome! i can't believe it! i just want to thank dr. weldon, flonase, allegra, zyrtec, loratidine, allavert, claritin, that epi-shot, my mom, HI MOM! my dad, HI DAD! GO CUBS!, Andre Dawson's mvp season, and the guys over at pixar animation, especially John Lasseter. It was his vision and drive that took a story of a little orphaned fish and brought it to life and it was his... *blink* wait a second... ok, i'm back.
anyhoo, i'm allergy-free. woohoo! steroids! though my car, freshly washed, is practically green from the pollen.
so as many of you know, the life of the PhD student has its ebbs and flows. there's periods of intense boredom balanced by insane stretches of 12-16 hour days trying to teach yourself computer programming (my latest 18-page homework...) or pouring (or is it poring?) through a number of papers just before class in case you get called on. and invariably, i do get called on. so how do i do it? i've invented games and diversions that distract me from the stress but allow me to gain focus when needed. even if focus and diversions are needed in the middle of a tiresome lecture or class. and this semester, there seems to be a plethora. a plethora? si, el guapo, i'd say a plethora... reasons abound, but the general point, as was made by roommate and good irishman eugene f. is that "you're working on why your here and everything else is becoming worthless!" well, i wouldn't go so far as to say worthless, but lots of this is seemingly irrelevant. so to take my mind off of irrelevant topics, i've gone and replaced them with other irelevancies.
for example, i can name all 43 presidents (well, 42, but grover cleveland counts twice since he served non-consecutively). i compulsively draw anatomically correct sharks (always facing left for some reason), semi-anatomically correct mermaids, fairly recognizable swans (but not ducks...). i've named all 32 nfl teams by division, correctly named the predicted 25-man roster for the chicago cubs, came up with nearly all 20 teams in the premiership (i got to 16 without a problem, then incorrectly named derby county who is residing in the first division ranks), memorized the countries of europe (not hard), asia (more difficult, especially all the n-stans), and africa (damn near impossible unless i guess right on the sequence of benin, togo, mali). i discovered that ecuador is a pretty small country but that el salvador is down-right tiny. i've examined river deltas in the black sea and the sea of japan. i've pondered the ideal proportion of coffee beans to cups of water (well above 1tsp. per cup or whatever the joke standard is). and just yesterday, i had an impromptu soccer party in the office as liverpool played barcelona in the european cup (we had 5 guys huddled around the computer). which is to say that i feel like i have a ton of spare time (why else would i be writing this?). throw in my daily comics, my late-night "topkat" viewing (such a good cartoon!), fark.com, and random sites to just stare at in disbelief (try out conservapedia.com for a good idea of what it's like to be me just shaking my head and saying, "are they serious? are they %$#* serious?!! no way..." and then spending a good hour trying to rediscover the beauty of the human mind and spirit as captured by youtube (search for flamboyantly gay soccer referee). as you can see, 24 hours ain't nearly enough some days and i oftentimes think, "am i about where i should be?" and then as i flip to check the answers to the sudoku, i say, "maybe."
but in truth, there's much going on and as we head towards that beautiful thing called spring break, i'm pretty well ahead at least in terms of becoming the conceptual PhD student than i was even in January. I can't imagine how i sounded in meetings last fall. "i want to study. Fish." just today, i outlined my 7 chapters of dissertation (background, benthic assessment, fish behavior, fish migration, fishery market analysis, tourism analysis, education) and was shocked to realize that despite the 234 games of cribbage i've played on my computer (compiling a healthy 125-109 record) not to mention learning bridge, euchre, and way too much time on the game who shalt not be named, i'm quietly morphing. it's fun to do science! hurray!
so what does this mean for my spring break? well, having just suited up the lab with insane dive gear (thank you!) and about to hook up some high-def video cameras for chapter 7 - goose makes a documentary, i get to get down to what i enjoy most about school: my work. though i have yet to dive, or even get out of greater pecos county, the thought that i get to shake off silly homework assignments to write chapter proposals and dream of far-off antigua, is enough to make a boy giddy.
and with that off my chest, on with the shout-outs!
happy 50k shout-out to T3 of Jersey City, NJ. with beautiful wifey Joy S. in the audience, T3 took home $50,000 from Who Wants to Be A Millionaire this past week. As mentioned previously, i was his phone-a-friend and as it turned out, helped him on what turned out to be the last question he answered. they really threw some tough ones at him once he got to $8000. and truth be told, though i sounded smart on tv (though T3, i do "marine geography" not "marine biology"... ahem!) the absolutely ONLY question i would have gotten was the one that i got the call for. so as my mom would say, "the luck of the goose continues on!" so congrats T3! you and Joysiloo enjoy that down payment on the house. and in case you read this humble submission, i want to let you know formally that i do not want / expect / need any sort of percentage of winnings. well, at least i don't want or expect them. in fact, if you must do anything at all, if you feel totally compelled to shower mr. "knows accident statistics involving deer" with gratitude, i hereby accept a nice little double-date at say gramercy tavern? i'll get the tip even! they recommend getting reservations a full month (or more!) in advance. i'll let you know. that is, if you're interested.
on a side note: happy "what a coincidence!" to uncle nick and aunt stef. while trying to come up with the info on the gramercy tavern, i discovered that in penn plaza there's another steakhouse called "stef and nick's!" if i get there, you'll get a postcard!
happy 1st birthday wishes to the darling ones: the little lasses skylar and arianna turn 1 on the ides of march! question to my brother the good dr. carr and his amazing wife, the better dr. carr, "if they were born in philadelphia but guam is a day ahead, are you going to celebrate local time or eastern standard time OR the new improved eastern daylight time which arrives this coming weekend for the first time ever? questions questions questions. of course, it'd be no big deal, but as it's their first and they only get 1 first birthday, uncle goose says, "follow my lead, ladies and have a birthday week!" HUZZAH!
happy spring training to all fellow cubs fans: dear old dad, the aforementioned good dr. carr, lech n. of berkeley, bryan g. of eastern iowa, and... is that all of us? geez... altogether now: "CUBS IN 2007!!!"
nice "extension of the blog to get printed in the paper!" shout-out to dear friend slider's younger brother "hambone" aka cougar aka sundown of annapolis, md. the local paper back home has little columns and after the soldier in afghanistan was told to stop writing his, our man on the scene hambone was all over it. though i should warn you hambone, NOBODY outside the age range of say 19-34 gets the mariokart reference. nobody. i recommend dropping "semi-anatomically correct mermaids" as a populist appeal to the readership of theday.com...
and finally: happy spring break to everyone! i fully understand my responsibility as one of the few remaining people out there with break rights (hambone and dr. lw notwithstanding, of course). i will be sure to revel for each of you and yours! and having discovered (although yet to be re-tested) that i may not be allergic to alleve*, i say, "bring on the guinness and the hangovers!" HUZZAH!
*at least to 200mg when taken in 2 separate 75mg and 125mg doses...
=goose=
Sunday, February 25, 2007
wouldn't you know it (the phone saga endeth) and why england loves oscar
... so wouldn't you know that the very day i get my replacement phone (the fancy red Motorola Razr), that my old phone shows up and is sitting on my desk when i arrive.
where was it? on the "bench" seat in the back of the department head's truck (think the back seat for those extended trucks). i had looked through said truck when getting dropped off but somehow failed to look on the seat itself, concentrating on the area where gravity would have deposited it (the floor). so 1 month of no phone, 1 replacement phone at $109, and we're back at square 1!!!
as for the razr? it's going back to sprint. nothing against it (very snazzy), but $109 is snazzier.
onto the oscars pick (and i'm completely clueless as i think this year, i've seen exactly zero of the movies up for nods)... major categories only... explanations where necessary
best actress in a supporting role: cate blanchett, "notes on a scandal". she's british. they always win this award. that and there are two ladies up from "babel" so that's splitting a vote, and i think everyone is a bit over voting for little kids (see: abigail breslin, "little miss sunshine"). and i heard "dream girls" was good only for eddie murphy's singing. huh? dark horse: miss breslin.
best actor in a supporting role: eddie murphy, "dream girls". see above. though i think djimon honsou is a tremendous actor and could win it for "blood diamond" in what could quickly become a very politically-loud oscar ceremony. dark horse: markie mark wahlberg.
best actress in a leading role: helen mirren, "the queen". 1) she looks like QEII, 2) eugene (who also hasn't seen a single nominated movie) says "mirren is a tremendous actor!" plus, she's british and british women always win oscars (see: gwenyth paltrow... wait? she's not british? are we sure?...). dark horse: meryl streep, "the devil wears prada". solid actress, also not british. and how penelope cruz is even nominated is beyond me. though she's quite delicious in a "not-an-old-british-actress" way. (see: Ms. Mirren, Dame Judi Dench, Ms. Kate Winslet, and Ms. Streep, who might be from Wales after all is said and done...)
best actor in a leading role: harrison ford, "indiana jones IV". what? it hasn't been made yet? oh... ok... um... Peter O'Toole, "Venus". So Sir O'Toole hasn't ever won an Oscar, right? He won a lifetime award in 2002, hasn't died in 2007, and is british? He might win best actress too! dark horse: forest whitaker, "the last king of scotland". why forest? 1) it's (nominally) about the UK, 2) wasn't he in "the crying game"? 3) and "dif'frent strokes"? give him some love! and let the people of Uganda rejoice! Celebrate Idi Amin! YES!
best animated film: "happy feet". why? march of the penguins won. brits wear tuxedos. penguins wear tuxedos. dark horse: "cars". not really. i bet cars wins. despite being a rip-off of "Doc Hollywood".
best documentary feature: "Iraq in Fragments". why? oscar can be loud and when voting was going on, it was cold, so the global warming movie might not stir up excitement. dark horse: "an inconvenient truth". why? everyone who's not a nutjob loves who al gore has become. side note: it's currently the movie sitting at home from netflix. so... maybe, just maybe i'll see one nominee prior to oscar. ah, maybe not (it's been there for 4 weeks at least...)
best adapted screenplay: "Borat". what is odd is that borat is largely improvisational, but if you have the "ali g" dvds, you know that Sacha Baron Cohen spends months perfecting his responses for every conceivable occasion. plus, since he wasn't allowed to dress as borat to present, he's BOUND TO show up as his gay german alter-ego bruno in case he wins. NICE! dark horse: no dark horse. borat is a phenonmenon. anyone who can call butros-butros gali "my main main man man, butros-butros-BUtros Gali" deserves recognition.
best original screenplay: "Little Miss Sunshine". voters like awarding this oscar to the movie that they secretly like but politically can't vote for other categories. this movie, from what i hear, is very good. bonus: it involves BOTH Steve Carrell ("40-yr. old virgin", "the office") AND Greg Kineear (who got Katie Holmes naked pre-nutso Tom Cruise, in "The Gift", which coincidentally has Cate Blanchett also... but people watch it for the holmes scene. just being honest...)
best director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu, "Babel". Not sure what this movie is about. It could be about that biblical tower, it could be about people learning a foreign language, it could be a rip-off of "Doc Hollywood". who knows. but Brad Pitt is in it right when he was going down to crazy-ville when he left Ms. Aniston for Ms. Jolie. That's a challenge for the director. Dark Horse: Paul Greengrass "Flight 93". why? 1) it's a sensitive topic still in the american consciousness, my brother said the movie was "intense" which is definitely part of the director's skill, and 3) see no.1.
Best Picture: The Departed. Why? Isn't Markie Mark in it?
happy Sunday!
--goose
best actor in a leading role:
where was it? on the "bench" seat in the back of the department head's truck (think the back seat for those extended trucks). i had looked through said truck when getting dropped off but somehow failed to look on the seat itself, concentrating on the area where gravity would have deposited it (the floor). so 1 month of no phone, 1 replacement phone at $109, and we're back at square 1!!!
as for the razr? it's going back to sprint. nothing against it (very snazzy), but $109 is snazzier.
onto the oscars pick (and i'm completely clueless as i think this year, i've seen exactly zero of the movies up for nods)... major categories only... explanations where necessary
best actress in a supporting role: cate blanchett, "notes on a scandal". she's british. they always win this award. that and there are two ladies up from "babel" so that's splitting a vote, and i think everyone is a bit over voting for little kids (see: abigail breslin, "little miss sunshine"). and i heard "dream girls" was good only for eddie murphy's singing. huh? dark horse: miss breslin.
best actor in a supporting role: eddie murphy, "dream girls". see above. though i think djimon honsou is a tremendous actor and could win it for "blood diamond" in what could quickly become a very politically-loud oscar ceremony. dark horse: markie mark wahlberg.
best actress in a leading role: helen mirren, "the queen". 1) she looks like QEII, 2) eugene (who also hasn't seen a single nominated movie) says "mirren is a tremendous actor!" plus, she's british and british women always win oscars (see: gwenyth paltrow... wait? she's not british? are we sure?...). dark horse: meryl streep, "the devil wears prada". solid actress, also not british. and how penelope cruz is even nominated is beyond me. though she's quite delicious in a "not-an-old-british-actress" way. (see: Ms. Mirren, Dame Judi Dench, Ms. Kate Winslet, and Ms. Streep, who might be from Wales after all is said and done...)
best actor in a leading role: harrison ford, "indiana jones IV". what? it hasn't been made yet? oh... ok... um... Peter O'Toole, "Venus". So Sir O'Toole hasn't ever won an Oscar, right? He won a lifetime award in 2002, hasn't died in 2007, and is british? He might win best actress too! dark horse: forest whitaker, "the last king of scotland". why forest? 1) it's (nominally) about the UK, 2) wasn't he in "the crying game"? 3) and "dif'frent strokes"? give him some love! and let the people of Uganda rejoice! Celebrate Idi Amin! YES!
best animated film: "happy feet". why? march of the penguins won. brits wear tuxedos. penguins wear tuxedos. dark horse: "cars". not really. i bet cars wins. despite being a rip-off of "Doc Hollywood".
best documentary feature: "Iraq in Fragments". why? oscar can be loud and when voting was going on, it was cold, so the global warming movie might not stir up excitement. dark horse: "an inconvenient truth". why? everyone who's not a nutjob loves who al gore has become. side note: it's currently the movie sitting at home from netflix. so... maybe, just maybe i'll see one nominee prior to oscar. ah, maybe not (it's been there for 4 weeks at least...)
best adapted screenplay: "Borat". what is odd is that borat is largely improvisational, but if you have the "ali g" dvds, you know that Sacha Baron Cohen spends months perfecting his responses for every conceivable occasion. plus, since he wasn't allowed to dress as borat to present, he's BOUND TO show up as his gay german alter-ego bruno in case he wins. NICE! dark horse: no dark horse. borat is a phenonmenon. anyone who can call butros-butros gali "my main main man man, butros-butros-BUtros Gali" deserves recognition.
best original screenplay: "Little Miss Sunshine". voters like awarding this oscar to the movie that they secretly like but politically can't vote for other categories. this movie, from what i hear, is very good. bonus: it involves BOTH Steve Carrell ("40-yr. old virgin", "the office") AND Greg Kineear (who got Katie Holmes naked pre-nutso Tom Cruise, in "The Gift", which coincidentally has Cate Blanchett also... but people watch it for the holmes scene. just being honest...)
best director: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarittu, "Babel". Not sure what this movie is about. It could be about that biblical tower, it could be about people learning a foreign language, it could be a rip-off of "Doc Hollywood". who knows. but Brad Pitt is in it right when he was going down to crazy-ville when he left Ms. Aniston for Ms. Jolie. That's a challenge for the director. Dark Horse: Paul Greengrass "Flight 93". why? 1) it's a sensitive topic still in the american consciousness, my brother said the movie was "intense" which is definitely part of the director's skill, and 3) see no.1.
Best Picture: The Departed. Why? Isn't Markie Mark in it?
happy Sunday!
--goose
best actor in a leading role:
Monday, February 19, 2007
february shout-outs and the amazing disappearance of phones
dearest all-
i think i enjoy this "monthly" reporting sequence. it may indeed mean that fewer people will remember to read my drivel (if any still do?) and that means the original method of mass-mailing everyone was, from my perspective, infinitely more useful as i actually was able to keep in contact with several people who i'd otherwise lose to the gulf of time. and why is this important? well, for starters, even when i don't lose my phone (especially permanently), i've never been one for initiating social contact. in that great game of psycho self-analysis, i think it harkens back to the days in 7th grade summer when i'd sit in the summer house on that tan phone with the tremendously long cord and listen as the girl i was hanging out with at the beach talked to her friend for HOURS! introversion is a learned behavior and as women make lists of things for guys to apologize for just by "being guys so you're guilty", i hereby start a list for girls to apologize to guys for just by "being a girl." ahem...
1st apology: "I'm sorry, *insert guy's name*, that at some point during puberty, you were tricked into listening to me talking to my friend on a 3-way phone call because we were both too shy to talk to each other, but because of my insecurities (and that a guy would never literally call in back up from a friend...) I dragged in a friend and then proceeded to talk about NKoTB. For three hours. And this is after you spent $5.00 on some sno-cones the day before that I dropped in the sand while chasing you."
Apology accepted.
You realize, of course, that from the prism of the adolescent and teen-aged mind, this phenomenon has morphed into myspace and the ilk (hence why i will not have a myspace account...). right now there are literally millions of boys out there who are being warped by coming home and agonizingly waiting for some girl they like to join their friend list. as is the rule, teenagehood is pathetic yet fortunately not fatal.
Of course, taking that trip down memory lane can be fun, especially if you are even remotely proficient at google.com. Take for instance my lost phone. I've lost every last number of every last person I've called in the last 4 years. Truly a bummer. Add in that most I don't have emails for and it becomes trying just to send them the "i lost your number" email. But google is brilliant and i found great success and as you'll read below in the shout-outs, many a dear friend has resurfaced after extended absences. Which, being a family-and-friends kind of guy, is highly enjoyable. Not nearly as enjoyable but highly amusing? See photos of friends and old girl friends as they hurtle towards and beyond the age of 30. Whoever designed this aging game needs to be dragged out back and shot. Even if, in the case of several of my friends haven't changed a bit in 10 years, the effects are hardly uniform.
But enough of that. Back to the phone. It's been missing for a month now. But nobody is using it (or at least burning my minutes). Yet it remains missing. And yes I checked each and every last bar I frequent or un-frequent. Note: never check behind couches at a bar. Ever. Or under. It boggles the imagination what grows. Or gets lost. Which is probably a good thing I didn't lose the phone there. I might have needed to dip it in bleach.
So I broke down and, since I have passed my 2-year commitment at Sprint, I was offered a nice, new phone for $109. OR, i could have the phone for free if I signed it up as a second number (at a monthly rate of $60). OR, i could cancel my account, dial back and sign up as a new individual, and get the same phone for $29 (after a mail-in rebate). Obviously, the last option makes the most sense since, by taking any of the options, I get a new 2-year contract. But not to the Sprint people. Though, once I did a closer check, my current contract is better than the new ones, so I opted for the $109 option. Just don't expect many crappy phone photos from me (easily the dumbest thing ever done to a phone... yet strangely popular esp. at bars around say, 1am...)
So tomorrow my new Motorola Red Razr phone arrives. Proceeds going to AIDs research in Africa, which is a good thing and definitely takes the whiff of unpleasantness about losing my phone away. And then who knows who I call first! It could be YOU!!!
though most likely not. thank you miss dori b., ca. 1990-1991 new london, ct...
ON TO THE SHOUTOUTS!!!
happy Valentine's Day 6 to everyone! Hope your v-day was great. and a special shout-out to friend stacy h. of washington, dc, who somehow (despite having a cool-ass job in the foreign service side of things there) may not have gotten hit by cupid. A special XXOO to you, stacy.
happy "google finds anything" shoutout to: cleber o. (san jose, ca), sharon w. (riverside), alison f. (new york), lech n. (oakland), and kristin s. (san fran). you'd think i'd write down their contact info, but i never do apparently. thanks to google, though, you're never far away!
big whose-it! shoutout to caribbean grouper. my research is sitting somewhere amongst all you fishes and (hopefully) soon i will begin to gather it. did someone say april-may? did someone say "miss finals to go dive?" if so, someone said "yes!"
happy 2-5 to the baby! ahh... i remember those days. that was my infamous bbq-with-motor-oil party. nice! as dear friend (and recently engaged) d. mike of cambridge, ma said, "best hot dogs! ever!"
in the birthday mode? ok! happy diamond jubilee (that's 75!) to my aunt anna m. of weirton, wv. besides being a great aunt, author of the best pizzelles in the family (which is funny since she and my mom are polish, and pizzelles and my mom's famous biscotti are award-winning at italian cook-offs...), inspiration for the family term of "mcconaugheys" for underwear and socks, she's the central player in the story (which may or may not be true) on how my mom got her *unusual* name. it involves aunt anna, her friend during her senior year of high school, and my grandfather balking at naming his sixth daughter (no sons)... happy big 7-5!!!
finally, a "billion samoleans!" shout-out to T3 of exit 18, nj. he's on "who wants to be a millionaire" sometime in the next 10 days. and to those who haven't heard, i was his phone-a-friend. want to know how he did (and, more importantly, if i'm getting a really nice steak dinner next time i see him?), you have to tune in! all i gots to say is it's lucky that regis isn't hosting anymore because i would have gone all USC all over his shamrock.
love and happy president's day!
--goose
i think i enjoy this "monthly" reporting sequence. it may indeed mean that fewer people will remember to read my drivel (if any still do?) and that means the original method of mass-mailing everyone was, from my perspective, infinitely more useful as i actually was able to keep in contact with several people who i'd otherwise lose to the gulf of time. and why is this important? well, for starters, even when i don't lose my phone (especially permanently), i've never been one for initiating social contact. in that great game of psycho self-analysis, i think it harkens back to the days in 7th grade summer when i'd sit in the summer house on that tan phone with the tremendously long cord and listen as the girl i was hanging out with at the beach talked to her friend for HOURS! introversion is a learned behavior and as women make lists of things for guys to apologize for just by "being guys so you're guilty", i hereby start a list for girls to apologize to guys for just by "being a girl." ahem...
1st apology: "I'm sorry, *insert guy's name*, that at some point during puberty, you were tricked into listening to me talking to my friend on a 3-way phone call because we were both too shy to talk to each other, but because of my insecurities (and that a guy would never literally call in back up from a friend...) I dragged in a friend and then proceeded to talk about NKoTB. For three hours. And this is after you spent $5.00 on some sno-cones the day before that I dropped in the sand while chasing you."
Apology accepted.
You realize, of course, that from the prism of the adolescent and teen-aged mind, this phenomenon has morphed into myspace and the ilk (hence why i will not have a myspace account...). right now there are literally millions of boys out there who are being warped by coming home and agonizingly waiting for some girl they like to join their friend list. as is the rule, teenagehood is pathetic yet fortunately not fatal.
Of course, taking that trip down memory lane can be fun, especially if you are even remotely proficient at google.com. Take for instance my lost phone. I've lost every last number of every last person I've called in the last 4 years. Truly a bummer. Add in that most I don't have emails for and it becomes trying just to send them the "i lost your number" email. But google is brilliant and i found great success and as you'll read below in the shout-outs, many a dear friend has resurfaced after extended absences. Which, being a family-and-friends kind of guy, is highly enjoyable. Not nearly as enjoyable but highly amusing? See photos of friends and old girl friends as they hurtle towards and beyond the age of 30. Whoever designed this aging game needs to be dragged out back and shot. Even if, in the case of several of my friends haven't changed a bit in 10 years, the effects are hardly uniform.
But enough of that. Back to the phone. It's been missing for a month now. But nobody is using it (or at least burning my minutes). Yet it remains missing. And yes I checked each and every last bar I frequent or un-frequent. Note: never check behind couches at a bar. Ever. Or under. It boggles the imagination what grows. Or gets lost. Which is probably a good thing I didn't lose the phone there. I might have needed to dip it in bleach.
So I broke down and, since I have passed my 2-year commitment at Sprint, I was offered a nice, new phone for $109. OR, i could have the phone for free if I signed it up as a second number (at a monthly rate of $60). OR, i could cancel my account, dial back and sign up as a new individual, and get the same phone for $29 (after a mail-in rebate). Obviously, the last option makes the most sense since, by taking any of the options, I get a new 2-year contract. But not to the Sprint people. Though, once I did a closer check, my current contract is better than the new ones, so I opted for the $109 option. Just don't expect many crappy phone photos from me (easily the dumbest thing ever done to a phone... yet strangely popular esp. at bars around say, 1am...)
So tomorrow my new Motorola Red Razr phone arrives. Proceeds going to AIDs research in Africa, which is a good thing and definitely takes the whiff of unpleasantness about losing my phone away. And then who knows who I call first! It could be YOU!!!
though most likely not. thank you miss dori b., ca. 1990-1991 new london, ct...
ON TO THE SHOUTOUTS!!!
happy Valentine's Day 6 to everyone! Hope your v-day was great. and a special shout-out to friend stacy h. of washington, dc, who somehow (despite having a cool-ass job in the foreign service side of things there) may not have gotten hit by cupid. A special XXOO to you, stacy.
happy "google finds anything" shoutout to: cleber o. (san jose, ca), sharon w. (riverside), alison f. (new york), lech n. (oakland), and kristin s. (san fran). you'd think i'd write down their contact info, but i never do apparently. thanks to google, though, you're never far away!
big whose-it! shoutout to caribbean grouper. my research is sitting somewhere amongst all you fishes and (hopefully) soon i will begin to gather it. did someone say april-may? did someone say "miss finals to go dive?" if so, someone said "yes!"
happy 2-5 to the baby! ahh... i remember those days. that was my infamous bbq-with-motor-oil party. nice! as dear friend (and recently engaged) d. mike of cambridge, ma said, "best hot dogs! ever!"
in the birthday mode? ok! happy diamond jubilee (that's 75!) to my aunt anna m. of weirton, wv. besides being a great aunt, author of the best pizzelles in the family (which is funny since she and my mom are polish, and pizzelles and my mom's famous biscotti are award-winning at italian cook-offs...), inspiration for the family term of "mcconaugheys" for underwear and socks, she's the central player in the story (which may or may not be true) on how my mom got her *unusual* name. it involves aunt anna, her friend during her senior year of high school, and my grandfather balking at naming his sixth daughter (no sons)... happy big 7-5!!!
finally, a "billion samoleans!" shout-out to T3 of exit 18, nj. he's on "who wants to be a millionaire" sometime in the next 10 days. and to those who haven't heard, i was his phone-a-friend. want to know how he did (and, more importantly, if i'm getting a really nice steak dinner next time i see him?), you have to tune in! all i gots to say is it's lucky that regis isn't hosting anymore because i would have gone all USC all over his shamrock.
love and happy president's day!
--goose
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
lucky strikes, unless it involves my boxers
luck - n. the force that seems to operate for good or ill in a person's life. good fortune.
lucky - adj. happening fortunately; marked by good luck
example 1: anyone who wins a half-court shot contest.
example 2: anyone who walks away from a nasty car accident.
example 3: winning the lottery.
example 4: goose's 2007 (thus far)
To some people, you make luck by being in the right spot, getting yourself prepared for that moment when you need to sway all the x-factors in your direction. To others, luck comes like a blessing of an angel or benevolent spirit. And to some, luck not only comes, but sets up shop with you for a while. As lucky streaks go, I am riding one that is perhaps even greater than the time I played roulette at the Mohegan Sun and cleaned up all my chips. I believe Lt. Sherman of the Coast Guard was with me at the time. I don't even remember how much I won, but i did win all of the possible gray chips I was playing. Which I think were worth $1 each. I can't imagine the Sun having roulette tables cheaper than $5, but maybe...
So what is this incredibly lucky streak? Chronologically: 1) 1 January 2007 - I find myself again on Virgin Gorda. 2) During my vacation, I work for UVI, turning a little mint to help offset my vacation costs (and by the way, a 30-day winter vacation in the tropics is pretty darn lucky too!). 3) far away, back in cold New London, my "1000 Club" number comes up for the first time in ages. Was it the silly $10 drawing? NO! $100!!! And my parents were there to witness it! (And I think the good Doctor's number also played that week...) 4) Upon my return to Texas, the airline has lost my big duffel bag of clothes. How is this lucky? Because they didn't lose my dive gear (which is financially irreplaceable these days. t-shirts I have...) But, there were a few nice items in the duffel bag, including some fancy nice shirts from the happiest Quicksilver store in the world (Honolulu, HI) and wooly slippers and my heavy Yale sweatshirt. Not to mention 4 bottles of hot sauce from St. Croix, at least one of which would surely break and ruin my clothes. So for 4 long days, I wait for American Airlines (No. 1 in delayed / lost luggage!) to get my stuff back to me.
Finally, I get the call. And Lo! And Behold! There's a strong smell of pepper sauce coming from my bag! NO! So I open the bag and not a single important/nice/expensive/warm piece of clothing is destroyed. I carefully take out each piece, examining and then placing in a nice pile of "good clothes" on my back seat (if you think that I would miss an opportunity to dramatize in front of the American counter, you'd be wrong. Gotta love regional airports where the departure ramp is five feet from the ticket counters...) and there, at the bottom of the bag, surrounded by 4 pairs of boxers and my Yale hoodie, is said broken bottle. And that's it! Not a drop of hot sauce got anywhere else. How's that for luck!
Though, to be sure, I am beginning to wonder about my odd trevails with boxers. Do note: hot sauce stains a funny color that is increasingly unfunny on light-colored cottons, especially when said cottons are part of your delicates... Why is it always my boxers?
To recap: I've had my gutchey washed away along a tropical current, had them stolen by snivelling laundry ladies, eaten by my dog, forgotten during a week-long trip to Philadelphia, and now irreparably dyed an amusing puce color if puce was a little more shit yellow/brown than purple.
and sorry mom about the swear... I'll go get the Ivory Liquid.
as always (knock on wood),
--goose
luck since then: 1 sick goal in a pick-up soccer game. full volley with right foot from 15 yards, upper 90. 1 night I didn't go out and would have been coming home right at the moment that a really nasty car accident happened around the corner from my house. 1 magical 18 page dissertation proposal that came together over 9 hours this afternoon.
More shout-outs next time. But now I have to get my butt to bed.
lucky - adj. happening fortunately; marked by good luck
example 1: anyone who wins a half-court shot contest.
example 2: anyone who walks away from a nasty car accident.
example 3: winning the lottery.
example 4: goose's 2007 (thus far)
To some people, you make luck by being in the right spot, getting yourself prepared for that moment when you need to sway all the x-factors in your direction. To others, luck comes like a blessing of an angel or benevolent spirit. And to some, luck not only comes, but sets up shop with you for a while. As lucky streaks go, I am riding one that is perhaps even greater than the time I played roulette at the Mohegan Sun and cleaned up all my chips. I believe Lt. Sherman of the Coast Guard was with me at the time. I don't even remember how much I won, but i did win all of the possible gray chips I was playing. Which I think were worth $1 each. I can't imagine the Sun having roulette tables cheaper than $5, but maybe...
So what is this incredibly lucky streak? Chronologically: 1) 1 January 2007 - I find myself again on Virgin Gorda. 2) During my vacation, I work for UVI, turning a little mint to help offset my vacation costs (and by the way, a 30-day winter vacation in the tropics is pretty darn lucky too!). 3) far away, back in cold New London, my "1000 Club" number comes up for the first time in ages. Was it the silly $10 drawing? NO! $100!!! And my parents were there to witness it! (And I think the good Doctor's number also played that week...) 4) Upon my return to Texas, the airline has lost my big duffel bag of clothes. How is this lucky? Because they didn't lose my dive gear (which is financially irreplaceable these days. t-shirts I have...) But, there were a few nice items in the duffel bag, including some fancy nice shirts from the happiest Quicksilver store in the world (Honolulu, HI) and wooly slippers and my heavy Yale sweatshirt. Not to mention 4 bottles of hot sauce from St. Croix, at least one of which would surely break and ruin my clothes. So for 4 long days, I wait for American Airlines (No. 1 in delayed / lost luggage!) to get my stuff back to me.
Finally, I get the call. And Lo! And Behold! There's a strong smell of pepper sauce coming from my bag! NO! So I open the bag and not a single important/nice/expensive/warm piece of clothing is destroyed. I carefully take out each piece, examining and then placing in a nice pile of "good clothes" on my back seat (if you think that I would miss an opportunity to dramatize in front of the American counter, you'd be wrong. Gotta love regional airports where the departure ramp is five feet from the ticket counters...) and there, at the bottom of the bag, surrounded by 4 pairs of boxers and my Yale hoodie, is said broken bottle. And that's it! Not a drop of hot sauce got anywhere else. How's that for luck!
Though, to be sure, I am beginning to wonder about my odd trevails with boxers. Do note: hot sauce stains a funny color that is increasingly unfunny on light-colored cottons, especially when said cottons are part of your delicates... Why is it always my boxers?
To recap: I've had my gutchey washed away along a tropical current, had them stolen by snivelling laundry ladies, eaten by my dog, forgotten during a week-long trip to Philadelphia, and now irreparably dyed an amusing puce color if puce was a little more shit yellow/brown than purple.
and sorry mom about the swear... I'll go get the Ivory Liquid.
as always (knock on wood),
--goose
luck since then: 1 sick goal in a pick-up soccer game. full volley with right foot from 15 yards, upper 90. 1 night I didn't go out and would have been coming home right at the moment that a really nasty car accident happened around the corner from my house. 1 magical 18 page dissertation proposal that came together over 9 hours this afternoon.
More shout-outs next time. But now I have to get my butt to bed.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
can you tell when a goose is cooked?
happy new year 2007!!!!
super exciting, i know. 2007. it's been 7 whole years since Y2K was going to make my apple IIe skills irrelevant...
quick apologies to the three of you who check this site more often than i do. can you believe that i actually forgot the web address? no, really! i did! wait... you're not disagreeing with me.
so right now, its 28 degrees in bountiful college station, texas and we're being hit with the "4th ice storm in the past quarter-century". someone (not brilliant but close) at the weather channel is calling it the "texas two-slip". why is this important? well, four days ago, i was sitting in beautiful st.croix, wondering how to get sand out of my dive gear. today, i'm wondering why i left st.croix in the first place. school was supposed to start two days ago, and i swear that we've had two snow days! totally understandable given that i would have preferred a pair of skates to my shoes as i walked to school today. why go to school on a snow day? well, 1) the monastery has no/little heat/insulation. and 2) someone at the monastery (most likely me) forgot to pay the cable bill for 2 months and so they turned it off over break. bummer. worst, though, is that we're out of food at the house and i don't want some nutjob to ram me on the road because they think that by owning a big american truck that they won't slip on the ice.
but enough of that, this semester is going to be a whammy, for sure. case in point? a 5-page paper assigned today despite not having class even once before it's due. i'm guessing the professor never took a "skills of teaching" course, where one of the primary aphorisms is to "never alienate your students on the first day of class." or maybe he has and is taking it literally by alienating us prior to said class...
as mentioned above, vacation in st.croix was superb. lots of lounging, curling up on the couch with the puppy while watching "price is right" (how i never went to a taping whilst in los angeles will weigh heavily on my mind for a long time...), going out to the bar (and drinking for free!), hitting the beach, diving, carnival!, and of course, christmas with my dearest. new year's on virgin gorda? yes, doctor! gotta love it! and double bonus: said dearest had a contact with a charter pilot who got us over there in 22 minutes (versus the 8+ hours of ferries required two years ago). i even rode in the co-pilot seat on the way back and now am beginning to wonder if my fear of flying is overblown. it's not, but thanks for the drugs, elibzeff! everyone who hates flying should be given fun things. for me, it used to be whiskey prior to take-off, but i have to admit, "mood elevators" or whatever those things were, it was nice not to leave a crease in the seat for once.
of course, as i begin to swoon for air travel after a long cold spell, they go and foul everything up. how? american airlines has "lost" my luggage. not both bags (somehow my dive gear made it...) but the one with the "cold weather clothes" including some bitching slippers i got for christmas are now somewhere between the virgin islands and here. and probably with a couple bottles of broken hot sauce soiling everything too. and to compound matters, they took my polo cologne bottle on the way down. bet they re-gifted that, those crummy tsa-ers. hate 'em!
so i'm sitting here in texas with no rain coat or my wicked awesome yale sweatshirt (super heavy with deep monk hood. it's da bomb!) for what is looking to be the worst weather i've faced in the past 5 years. at the very least, i packed my ali g dvds in my carry on so i have something to assuage my anger. but of course, fingers are crossed.
so that's the update... on to the shout-outs!
MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION IS GOING GREAT SHOUT-OUT TO: Skippy Peanut Butter! i gave up "trans fats" after a news report saying that they were about the worst thing you could put in yourself that wasn't called di-methyl mercury. and i was faring the worst because, even with said resolution, i probably had a good 25 years of trans fats already on me from my certain diet. but guess what?!!! no trans fats! just loads of saturated fats! yea! (i think...)
WICKED DANCING STYLE SHOUT-OUT TO: Misty H. of St.Croix. four days on virgin gorda and she left about 3 broken hearts when we boarded the plane home. some people have a way with bartenders on that tropical island, and i know both of them.
DID THEY JUST DO THAT? SHOUT-OUT TO: my dear homey Ryan H. of St.Croix. whilst watching the "Adult Parade" at the Christmas Carnival, doctor ryan got the quote of the year 2006 while a dance troupe performed something that seemed awfully similar to (what i would imagine to be) synchronized ob-gyn examinations. and i'm already sorry for that visual image, but rest assured, ryan isn't. or won't be. for a while.
JUST GOES TO SHOW YOU SHOUT-OUT TO: USC Football. Blasting out Michigan prior to the big flat fart that Ohio State made against Florida made me (and every other trojan i know) think: we would've killed them! of course, given my travels, i missed most of the bowl games (i saw the 1st half of both the title game and the rose bowl) but i did wear all my USC gear to the bar for the buckeye massacre and, as the gator fans (excluding dear friend and actual UF alum Moe who was strangely absent) were cheering and "chomping" i started with my annoying rendition of SoCal Spellouts and Fight On and "Beat the Gators!" and other trash-talking that will be irrelevant b/c florida won't win the SEC next year. though, i'm secretly afraid of Boise State.
WHY YOU SHOULD ADOPT SHOUT-OUT TO: my puppy rowan. after 4 months away, she still remembered my face (and probably smell...) when i got off the plane. and let me tell you, a hyper-excited 30lbs. bundle of furry joy ready to lick your face off is about the very best "welcome home" you can ask for. i miss her already.
and finally, CAN'T I GET A PIECE OF PEACE SHOUT-OUT TO: the year 2007. i hope everyone is doing well, keep reading this treacle and sending me emails (i am again writing back) and enjoy what you're doing. i have to admit, despite the workload in front of me, i'm eager to get back to work here. and, as the book i almost bought says, "you too can write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day!" that they ignore that that would require 9 years of 15-minute days is beside the point, i'm certain.
--goose
and PS SHOUT-OUT TO: all my dear friends who got engaged/married in 2006. the list is enviably full: D-Mike of Boston, Kristin S. of NoCal, Heidi R. of Missoula, Slider R. of Honolulu, J-Blonde of St. Thomas, Lauren G. (Miss G!) of Indiana, and Elibzeff B. of St. Thomas. days of happiness and bliss to each of you! and should you have been part of my "Ultimate Singles Challenge" bet, don't forget to get that check to me in the mail! it's tax-deductible!
super exciting, i know. 2007. it's been 7 whole years since Y2K was going to make my apple IIe skills irrelevant...
quick apologies to the three of you who check this site more often than i do. can you believe that i actually forgot the web address? no, really! i did! wait... you're not disagreeing with me.
so right now, its 28 degrees in bountiful college station, texas and we're being hit with the "4th ice storm in the past quarter-century". someone (not brilliant but close) at the weather channel is calling it the "texas two-slip". why is this important? well, four days ago, i was sitting in beautiful st.croix, wondering how to get sand out of my dive gear. today, i'm wondering why i left st.croix in the first place. school was supposed to start two days ago, and i swear that we've had two snow days! totally understandable given that i would have preferred a pair of skates to my shoes as i walked to school today. why go to school on a snow day? well, 1) the monastery has no/little heat/insulation. and 2) someone at the monastery (most likely me) forgot to pay the cable bill for 2 months and so they turned it off over break. bummer. worst, though, is that we're out of food at the house and i don't want some nutjob to ram me on the road because they think that by owning a big american truck that they won't slip on the ice.
but enough of that, this semester is going to be a whammy, for sure. case in point? a 5-page paper assigned today despite not having class even once before it's due. i'm guessing the professor never took a "skills of teaching" course, where one of the primary aphorisms is to "never alienate your students on the first day of class." or maybe he has and is taking it literally by alienating us prior to said class...
as mentioned above, vacation in st.croix was superb. lots of lounging, curling up on the couch with the puppy while watching "price is right" (how i never went to a taping whilst in los angeles will weigh heavily on my mind for a long time...), going out to the bar (and drinking for free!), hitting the beach, diving, carnival!, and of course, christmas with my dearest. new year's on virgin gorda? yes, doctor! gotta love it! and double bonus: said dearest had a contact with a charter pilot who got us over there in 22 minutes (versus the 8+ hours of ferries required two years ago). i even rode in the co-pilot seat on the way back and now am beginning to wonder if my fear of flying is overblown. it's not, but thanks for the drugs, elibzeff! everyone who hates flying should be given fun things. for me, it used to be whiskey prior to take-off, but i have to admit, "mood elevators" or whatever those things were, it was nice not to leave a crease in the seat for once.
of course, as i begin to swoon for air travel after a long cold spell, they go and foul everything up. how? american airlines has "lost" my luggage. not both bags (somehow my dive gear made it...) but the one with the "cold weather clothes" including some bitching slippers i got for christmas are now somewhere between the virgin islands and here. and probably with a couple bottles of broken hot sauce soiling everything too. and to compound matters, they took my polo cologne bottle on the way down. bet they re-gifted that, those crummy tsa-ers. hate 'em!
so i'm sitting here in texas with no rain coat or my wicked awesome yale sweatshirt (super heavy with deep monk hood. it's da bomb!) for what is looking to be the worst weather i've faced in the past 5 years. at the very least, i packed my ali g dvds in my carry on so i have something to assuage my anger. but of course, fingers are crossed.
so that's the update... on to the shout-outs!
MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION IS GOING GREAT SHOUT-OUT TO: Skippy Peanut Butter! i gave up "trans fats" after a news report saying that they were about the worst thing you could put in yourself that wasn't called di-methyl mercury. and i was faring the worst because, even with said resolution, i probably had a good 25 years of trans fats already on me from my certain diet. but guess what?!!! no trans fats! just loads of saturated fats! yea! (i think...)
WICKED DANCING STYLE SHOUT-OUT TO: Misty H. of St.Croix. four days on virgin gorda and she left about 3 broken hearts when we boarded the plane home. some people have a way with bartenders on that tropical island, and i know both of them.
DID THEY JUST DO THAT? SHOUT-OUT TO: my dear homey Ryan H. of St.Croix. whilst watching the "Adult Parade" at the Christmas Carnival, doctor ryan got the quote of the year 2006 while a dance troupe performed something that seemed awfully similar to (what i would imagine to be) synchronized ob-gyn examinations. and i'm already sorry for that visual image, but rest assured, ryan isn't. or won't be. for a while.
JUST GOES TO SHOW YOU SHOUT-OUT TO: USC Football. Blasting out Michigan prior to the big flat fart that Ohio State made against Florida made me (and every other trojan i know) think: we would've killed them! of course, given my travels, i missed most of the bowl games (i saw the 1st half of both the title game and the rose bowl) but i did wear all my USC gear to the bar for the buckeye massacre and, as the gator fans (excluding dear friend and actual UF alum Moe who was strangely absent) were cheering and "chomping" i started with my annoying rendition of SoCal Spellouts and Fight On and "Beat the Gators!" and other trash-talking that will be irrelevant b/c florida won't win the SEC next year. though, i'm secretly afraid of Boise State.
WHY YOU SHOULD ADOPT SHOUT-OUT TO: my puppy rowan. after 4 months away, she still remembered my face (and probably smell...) when i got off the plane. and let me tell you, a hyper-excited 30lbs. bundle of furry joy ready to lick your face off is about the very best "welcome home" you can ask for. i miss her already.
and finally, CAN'T I GET A PIECE OF PEACE SHOUT-OUT TO: the year 2007. i hope everyone is doing well, keep reading this treacle and sending me emails (i am again writing back) and enjoy what you're doing. i have to admit, despite the workload in front of me, i'm eager to get back to work here. and, as the book i almost bought says, "you too can write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day!" that they ignore that that would require 9 years of 15-minute days is beside the point, i'm certain.
--goose
and PS SHOUT-OUT TO: all my dear friends who got engaged/married in 2006. the list is enviably full: D-Mike of Boston, Kristin S. of NoCal, Heidi R. of Missoula, Slider R. of Honolulu, J-Blonde of St. Thomas, Lauren G. (Miss G!) of Indiana, and Elibzeff B. of St. Thomas. days of happiness and bliss to each of you! and should you have been part of my "Ultimate Singles Challenge" bet, don't forget to get that check to me in the mail! it's tax-deductible!
can you tell when a goose is cooked?
happy new year 2007!!!!
super exciting, i know. 2007. it's been 7 whole years since Y2K was going to make my apple IIe skills irrelevant...
quick apologies to the three of you who check this site more often than i do. can you believe that i actually forgot the web address? no, really! i did! wait... you're not disagreeing with me.
so right now, its 28 degrees in bountiful college station, texas and we're being hit with the "4th ice storm in the past quarter-century". someone (not brilliant but close) at the weather channel is calling it the "texas two-slip". why is this important? well, four days ago, i was sitting in beautiful st.croix, wondering how to get sand out of my dive gear. today, i'm wondering why i left st.croix in the first place. school was supposed to start two days ago, and i swear that we've had two snow days! totally understandable given that i would have preferred a pair of skates to my shoes as i walked to school today. why go to school on a snow day? well, 1) the monastery has no/little heat/insulation. and 2) someone at the monastery (most likely me) forgot to pay the cable bill for 2 months and so they turned it off over break. bummer. worst, though, is that we're out of food at the house and i don't want some nutjob to ram me on the road because they think that by owning a big american truck that they won't slip on the ice.
but enough of that, this semester is going to be a whammy, for sure. case in point? a 5-page paper assigned today despite not having class even once before it's due. i'm guessing the professor never took a "skills of teaching" course, where one of the primary aphorisms is to "never alienate your students on the first day of class." or maybe he has and is taking it literally by alienating us prior to said class...
as mentioned above, vacation in st.croix was superb. lots of lounging, curling up on the couch with the puppy while watching "price is right" (how i never went to a taping whilst in los angeles will weigh heavily on my mind for a long time...), going out to the bar (and drinking for free!), hitting the beach, diving, carnival!, and of course, christmas with my dearest. new year's on virgin gorda? yes, doctor! gotta love it! and double bonus: said dearest had a contact with a charter pilot who got us over there in 22 minutes (versus the 8+ hours of ferries required two years ago). i even rode in the co-pilot seat on the way back and now am beginning to wonder if my fear of flying is overblown. it's not, but thanks for the drugs, elibzeff! everyone who hates flying should be given fun things. for me, it used to be whiskey prior to take-off, but i have to admit, "mood elevators" or whatever those things were, it was nice not to leave a crease in the seat for once.
of course, as i begin to swoon for air travel after a long cold spell, they go and foul everything up. how? american airlines has "lost" my luggage. not both bags (somehow my dive gear made it...) but the one with the "cold weather clothes" including some bitching slippers i got for christmas are now somewhere between the virgin islands and here. and probably with a couple bottles of broken hot sauce soiling everything too. and to compound matters, they took my polo cologne bottle on the way down. bet they re-gifted that, those crummy tsa-ers. hate 'em!
so i'm sitting here in texas with no rain coat or my wicked awesome yale sweatshirt (super heavy with deep monk hood. it's da bomb!) for what is looking to be the worst weather i've faced in the past 5 years. at the very least, i packed my ali g dvds in my carry on so i have something to assuage my anger. but of course, fingers are crossed.
so that's the update... on to the shout-outs!
MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION IS GOING GREAT SHOUT-OUT TO: Skippy Peanut Butter! i gave up "trans fats" after a news report saying that they were about the worst thing you could put in yourself that wasn't called di-methyl mercury. and i was faring the worst because, even with said resolution, i probably had a good 25 years of trans fats already on me from my certain diet. but guess what?!!! no trans fats! just loads of saturated fats! yea! (i think...)
WICKED DANCING STYLE SHOUT-OUT TO: Misty H. of St.Croix. four days on virgin gorda and she left about 3 broken hearts when we boarded the plane home. some people have a way with bartenders on that tropical island, and i know both of them.
DID THEY JUST DO THAT? SHOUT-OUT TO: my dear homey Ryan H. of St.Croix. whilst watching the "Adult Parade" at the Christmas Carnival, doctor ryan got the quote of the year 2006 while a dance troupe performed something that seemed awfully similar to (what i would imagine to be) synchronized ob-gyn examinations. and i'm already sorry for that visual image, but rest assured, ryan isn't. or won't be. for a while.
JUST GOES TO SHOW YOU SHOUT-OUT TO: USC Football. Blasting out Michigan prior to the big flat fart that Ohio State made against Florida made me (and every other trojan i know) think: we would've killed them! of course, given my travels, i missed most of the bowl games (i saw the 1st half of both the title game and the rose bowl) but i did wear all my USC gear to the bar for the buckeye massacre and, as the gator fans (excluding dear friend and actual UF alum Moe who was strangely absent) were cheering and "chomping" i started with my annoying rendition of SoCal Spellouts and Fight On and "Beat the Gators!" and other trash-talking that will be irrelevant b/c florida won't win the SEC next year. though, i'm secretly afraid of Boise State.
WHY YOU SHOULD ADOPT SHOUT-OUT TO: my puppy rowan. after 4 months away, she still remembered my face (and probably smell...) when i got off the plane. and let me tell you, a hyper-excited 30lbs. bundle of furry joy ready to lick your face off is about the very best "welcome home" you can ask for. i miss her already.
and finally, CAN'T I GET A PIECE OF PEACE SHOUT-OUT TO: the year 2007. i hope everyone is doing well, keep reading this treacle and sending me emails (i am again writing back) and enjoy what you're doing. i have to admit, despite the workload in front of me, i'm eager to get back to work here. and, as the book i almost bought says, "you too can write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day!" that they ignore that that would require 9 years of 15-minute days is beside the point, i'm certain.
--goose
and PS SHOUT-OUT TO: all my dear friends who got engaged/married in 2006. the list is enviably full: D-Mike of Boston, Kristin S. of NoCal, Heidi R. of Missoula, Slider R. of Honolulu, J-Blonde of St. Thomas, Lauren G. (Miss G!) of Indiana, and Elibzeff B. of St. Thomas. days of happiness and bliss to each of you! and should you have been part of my "Ultimate Singles Challenge" bet, don't forget to get that check to me in the mail! it's tax-deductible!
super exciting, i know. 2007. it's been 7 whole years since Y2K was going to make my apple IIe skills irrelevant...
quick apologies to the three of you who check this site more often than i do. can you believe that i actually forgot the web address? no, really! i did! wait... you're not disagreeing with me.
so right now, its 28 degrees in bountiful college station, texas and we're being hit with the "4th ice storm in the past quarter-century". someone (not brilliant but close) at the weather channel is calling it the "texas two-slip". why is this important? well, four days ago, i was sitting in beautiful st.croix, wondering how to get sand out of my dive gear. today, i'm wondering why i left st.croix in the first place. school was supposed to start two days ago, and i swear that we've had two snow days! totally understandable given that i would have preferred a pair of skates to my shoes as i walked to school today. why go to school on a snow day? well, 1) the monastery has no/little heat/insulation. and 2) someone at the monastery (most likely me) forgot to pay the cable bill for 2 months and so they turned it off over break. bummer. worst, though, is that we're out of food at the house and i don't want some nutjob to ram me on the road because they think that by owning a big american truck that they won't slip on the ice.
but enough of that, this semester is going to be a whammy, for sure. case in point? a 5-page paper assigned today despite not having class even once before it's due. i'm guessing the professor never took a "skills of teaching" course, where one of the primary aphorisms is to "never alienate your students on the first day of class." or maybe he has and is taking it literally by alienating us prior to said class...
as mentioned above, vacation in st.croix was superb. lots of lounging, curling up on the couch with the puppy while watching "price is right" (how i never went to a taping whilst in los angeles will weigh heavily on my mind for a long time...), going out to the bar (and drinking for free!), hitting the beach, diving, carnival!, and of course, christmas with my dearest. new year's on virgin gorda? yes, doctor! gotta love it! and double bonus: said dearest had a contact with a charter pilot who got us over there in 22 minutes (versus the 8+ hours of ferries required two years ago). i even rode in the co-pilot seat on the way back and now am beginning to wonder if my fear of flying is overblown. it's not, but thanks for the drugs, elibzeff! everyone who hates flying should be given fun things. for me, it used to be whiskey prior to take-off, but i have to admit, "mood elevators" or whatever those things were, it was nice not to leave a crease in the seat for once.
of course, as i begin to swoon for air travel after a long cold spell, they go and foul everything up. how? american airlines has "lost" my luggage. not both bags (somehow my dive gear made it...) but the one with the "cold weather clothes" including some bitching slippers i got for christmas are now somewhere between the virgin islands and here. and probably with a couple bottles of broken hot sauce soiling everything too. and to compound matters, they took my polo cologne bottle on the way down. bet they re-gifted that, those crummy tsa-ers. hate 'em!
so i'm sitting here in texas with no rain coat or my wicked awesome yale sweatshirt (super heavy with deep monk hood. it's da bomb!) for what is looking to be the worst weather i've faced in the past 5 years. at the very least, i packed my ali g dvds in my carry on so i have something to assuage my anger. but of course, fingers are crossed.
so that's the update... on to the shout-outs!
MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION IS GOING GREAT SHOUT-OUT TO: Skippy Peanut Butter! i gave up "trans fats" after a news report saying that they were about the worst thing you could put in yourself that wasn't called di-methyl mercury. and i was faring the worst because, even with said resolution, i probably had a good 25 years of trans fats already on me from my certain diet. but guess what?!!! no trans fats! just loads of saturated fats! yea! (i think...)
WICKED DANCING STYLE SHOUT-OUT TO: Misty H. of St.Croix. four days on virgin gorda and she left about 3 broken hearts when we boarded the plane home. some people have a way with bartenders on that tropical island, and i know both of them.
DID THEY JUST DO THAT? SHOUT-OUT TO: my dear homey Ryan H. of St.Croix. whilst watching the "Adult Parade" at the Christmas Carnival, doctor ryan got the quote of the year 2006 while a dance troupe performed something that seemed awfully similar to (what i would imagine to be) synchronized ob-gyn examinations. and i'm already sorry for that visual image, but rest assured, ryan isn't. or won't be. for a while.
JUST GOES TO SHOW YOU SHOUT-OUT TO: USC Football. Blasting out Michigan prior to the big flat fart that Ohio State made against Florida made me (and every other trojan i know) think: we would've killed them! of course, given my travels, i missed most of the bowl games (i saw the 1st half of both the title game and the rose bowl) but i did wear all my USC gear to the bar for the buckeye massacre and, as the gator fans (excluding dear friend and actual UF alum Moe who was strangely absent) were cheering and "chomping" i started with my annoying rendition of SoCal Spellouts and Fight On and "Beat the Gators!" and other trash-talking that will be irrelevant b/c florida won't win the SEC next year. though, i'm secretly afraid of Boise State.
WHY YOU SHOULD ADOPT SHOUT-OUT TO: my puppy rowan. after 4 months away, she still remembered my face (and probably smell...) when i got off the plane. and let me tell you, a hyper-excited 30lbs. bundle of furry joy ready to lick your face off is about the very best "welcome home" you can ask for. i miss her already.
and finally, CAN'T I GET A PIECE OF PEACE SHOUT-OUT TO: the year 2007. i hope everyone is doing well, keep reading this treacle and sending me emails (i am again writing back) and enjoy what you're doing. i have to admit, despite the workload in front of me, i'm eager to get back to work here. and, as the book i almost bought says, "you too can write your dissertation in 15 minutes a day!" that they ignore that that would require 9 years of 15-minute days is beside the point, i'm certain.
--goose
and PS SHOUT-OUT TO: all my dear friends who got engaged/married in 2006. the list is enviably full: D-Mike of Boston, Kristin S. of NoCal, Heidi R. of Missoula, Slider R. of Honolulu, J-Blonde of St. Thomas, Lauren G. (Miss G!) of Indiana, and Elibzeff B. of St. Thomas. days of happiness and bliss to each of you! and should you have been part of my "Ultimate Singles Challenge" bet, don't forget to get that check to me in the mail! it's tax-deductible!
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
post turkeyday shoutouts and an inspiration
dearest all-
what a vacation i've had! i actually wrote an entry for this publication while flying over the united states last week (from dallas to los angeles for the big USC/cal game) but it went on and on and basically, i realized that i had been writing not for your enjoyment but for the express purpose of not thinking about flying. which failed miserably since i wrote about how much i hated flying. to recap and brevitize: when i fly, three things happen: 1) i get anxious, 2) i get cold sweats, 3) i get anxious about my cold sweats. which is why i now fly with both a change of shirts (for arrival freshness guaranteed!) and some "italian shower" stuff (cologne and deodorant). and in this new age of decency, i apologize to my italian friends out there. but we know germans don't even wear cologne, despite the namesake town.
anyhoo, it was a blast of a thanksgiving holiday and my batteries are, to clicheitize, recharged.
so, on to an extended shoutout section (chronologically ordered for clarity):
SUPERDUPER SHOUTOUT to the pilots of american airlines. specifically, the pilots on every plane i flew. they did not: randomly trigger any nosedive, turn on/off the seatbelt signs more than once (always a sweat trigger), or arrive short of distance. thanks!
massive shoutout to dr. sharon w. of riverside, california. not only did she 1) give up her ticket for the cal game (so i could sit with her effervescent trojan-clad fan sister katie w. of los angeles), but she 2) showed off her new digs (4.5 stars out of 5. a tipping futon, by the way, is a bonus!), and 3) gave us a tour of riverside. having seen a bunch of places on this place called earth, let me say that riverside is by no means waikiki or hermosa beach. but it definitely has college station beat. nothing gave me more sadness than seeing texas in my front-view mirror as i drove back yesterday from the airport. riverside has a distinctive "california aesthetic", i.e. its slightly manufactured, gloriously manicured, and definitely appealing if a bit fakish. just like the actresses.
BEAT THE BRUINS (rhymes with PRUNES) shout-out to: katie, marcas, eniko, and stef. organization being what it was, i didn't actually get to party with everyone i wanted to party with whilst in los angeles, but i did have a great time. and as an inspiration, i've just read marnas' myspace blog and it comes as no surprise that he's still talented as the wordsmith. hence that radio gig he got. if you haven't read it, go ahead. he somehow scored the "marcas" tag on myspace. probably b/c, at 29, he's roughly 11.5 years older than the average user so is practically an original blogger (since 1999!!!) also sporting a myspace account is stef h. of section 8, row 2, near the wall. nice wave back, longhair! see you at 40!
speaking of which, i must recount the little tidbit side-story of the cal game. 1) by having lunch with the dr. w's, i did manage to share a little floor space with some song girls. bonus. 2) by seeing marnas and eniko inside associate's park (thanks to some shifty nametag passing), i did manage to get a photo, upclose, of my songgirl for this year, alissa. bonusbonus. 3) by taking sordid candids of dancing alissas, i did manage to score a few free beers with marnas et al. bonusbonusbonus. 4) that stef called moments later to say the beer was gone at her party and i missed a chance to see her for the first time this century? super no bonus. boo and hoo. i will sadly be forced to stare at my alissa desktop for the coming year in misery. that she got, the very next game, field passes from the notre dame killer anthony davis, and photos appearing with said mr. davis and other, current trojan killers, makes my blurry alissa photo a little less happy. at least she has acknowledged my providing field passes to her once upon a moon.
how does one talk trash in a fancy section at a usc football game? start tapping the cal fan in front of you mid-way through the 3rd quarter with "its a long ride to berkeley" (sung to "its a long way to tipperary"). how does one talk trash on way to game? spend 17 months growing hair out (now since trimmed to a respectable length), wear dirty jeans and loud shirt and start singing, "dirty long-haired hippies! go home!" (sung to the tune of "to the ends of the earth goes i") can you tell i enjoyed that game? therefore: maximum shoutout to pete carroll and crew for absolving me of fear of the "carr bros. curse" at my first game back since graduation. it's all those $19.99 checks i write each year, i bet...
a 2 = 4 shoutout to nara w. of los angeles. a perfect sunday morning breakfast at the pantry was immediately thrown on ear when we discovered they changed their numbering system for ordering! holy canoles! thank goodness i caught it! and while i linger on my successfully re-ordered 4 (nee 2: 2 pancakes, 2 eggs, hashbrowns, orange juice), i'm willing to bet that nara will catch his spot for a television gig before summer's out. first, we get T3 on "who wants to be a millionaire", then it's me and euge on "college gameday", now nara's turn! which makes me all the more excited to see other members of fluor 803 turn up on tv. any takers for "ben m. on maury povich?" anyone? anyone?
surprisesurprisesurprise shout-out to the huntington gardens in pasadena, california. the dr. w's took the cdr. c's there on sunday pre-flight. wondrous gardens. beautiful gardens. in fact, i'd say that they were the nicest gardens i've ever been in. that they are the only gardens i've ever been in is beside the point. best part was the barefeet i managed to get into for the zen garden (that and the patient zen-like photo of said garden, muy impresivo...)
finally, aloha and macadamia nut shout-out to the people of oah'u. i had a blast there. even the zealot-prophet who drove the shuttle from the airport at 10pm when we were all worn out from flying was a hoot. from surfing (with the locoboyz) to driving the north shore to catching up on sleep or stealing free internet to email papers that were due, it was a perfect vacation. i only wish it lasted longer or that i was fabulously wealthy. both would equal more fun. but, poor as i am, i still felt rich when i left. and it had everything to do with the beautiful family i am surrounded by. that and the "drive with aloha" signs. but seriously, the good dr. and his family of showstoppers was just so great to see and hang out with again. when they move to the far side of the globe for 3 years and you have just enough time and money to revel as far west as riverside, you take your moments where you can. it's mind-blowing to know the next time i see skylar and arianna, they'll (probably) be walking/talking with no memories of crying every time i tried to say hi to them!
ps shoutout to jenna and jeff, the happy couple. and pps bonus shoutout to thatch and his upcoming digs in hermosa beach. having seen riverside, i can't wait for a reason to visit in hermosa! (just kidding, sharon. riverside was lovely...) besides which:
college station << riverside
an engineer should get that one...
peace and aloh'a! --goose
now: BEAT THE BRUINS!
what a vacation i've had! i actually wrote an entry for this publication while flying over the united states last week (from dallas to los angeles for the big USC/cal game) but it went on and on and basically, i realized that i had been writing not for your enjoyment but for the express purpose of not thinking about flying. which failed miserably since i wrote about how much i hated flying. to recap and brevitize: when i fly, three things happen: 1) i get anxious, 2) i get cold sweats, 3) i get anxious about my cold sweats. which is why i now fly with both a change of shirts (for arrival freshness guaranteed!) and some "italian shower" stuff (cologne and deodorant). and in this new age of decency, i apologize to my italian friends out there. but we know germans don't even wear cologne, despite the namesake town.
anyhoo, it was a blast of a thanksgiving holiday and my batteries are, to clicheitize, recharged.
so, on to an extended shoutout section (chronologically ordered for clarity):
SUPERDUPER SHOUTOUT to the pilots of american airlines. specifically, the pilots on every plane i flew. they did not: randomly trigger any nosedive, turn on/off the seatbelt signs more than once (always a sweat trigger), or arrive short of distance. thanks!
massive shoutout to dr. sharon w. of riverside, california. not only did she 1) give up her ticket for the cal game (so i could sit with her effervescent trojan-clad fan sister katie w. of los angeles), but she 2) showed off her new digs (4.5 stars out of 5. a tipping futon, by the way, is a bonus!), and 3) gave us a tour of riverside. having seen a bunch of places on this place called earth, let me say that riverside is by no means waikiki or hermosa beach. but it definitely has college station beat. nothing gave me more sadness than seeing texas in my front-view mirror as i drove back yesterday from the airport. riverside has a distinctive "california aesthetic", i.e. its slightly manufactured, gloriously manicured, and definitely appealing if a bit fakish. just like the actresses.
BEAT THE BRUINS (rhymes with PRUNES) shout-out to: katie, marcas, eniko, and stef. organization being what it was, i didn't actually get to party with everyone i wanted to party with whilst in los angeles, but i did have a great time. and as an inspiration, i've just read marnas' myspace blog and it comes as no surprise that he's still talented as the wordsmith. hence that radio gig he got. if you haven't read it, go ahead. he somehow scored the "marcas" tag on myspace. probably b/c, at 29, he's roughly 11.5 years older than the average user so is practically an original blogger (since 1999!!!) also sporting a myspace account is stef h. of section 8, row 2, near the wall. nice wave back, longhair! see you at 40!
speaking of which, i must recount the little tidbit side-story of the cal game. 1) by having lunch with the dr. w's, i did manage to share a little floor space with some song girls. bonus. 2) by seeing marnas and eniko inside associate's park (thanks to some shifty nametag passing), i did manage to get a photo, upclose, of my songgirl for this year, alissa. bonusbonus. 3) by taking sordid candids of dancing alissas, i did manage to score a few free beers with marnas et al. bonusbonusbonus. 4) that stef called moments later to say the beer was gone at her party and i missed a chance to see her for the first time this century? super no bonus. boo and hoo. i will sadly be forced to stare at my alissa desktop for the coming year in misery. that she got, the very next game, field passes from the notre dame killer anthony davis, and photos appearing with said mr. davis and other, current trojan killers, makes my blurry alissa photo a little less happy. at least she has acknowledged my providing field passes to her once upon a moon.
how does one talk trash in a fancy section at a usc football game? start tapping the cal fan in front of you mid-way through the 3rd quarter with "its a long ride to berkeley" (sung to "its a long way to tipperary"). how does one talk trash on way to game? spend 17 months growing hair out (now since trimmed to a respectable length), wear dirty jeans and loud shirt and start singing, "dirty long-haired hippies! go home!" (sung to the tune of "to the ends of the earth goes i") can you tell i enjoyed that game? therefore: maximum shoutout to pete carroll and crew for absolving me of fear of the "carr bros. curse" at my first game back since graduation. it's all those $19.99 checks i write each year, i bet...
a 2 = 4 shoutout to nara w. of los angeles. a perfect sunday morning breakfast at the pantry was immediately thrown on ear when we discovered they changed their numbering system for ordering! holy canoles! thank goodness i caught it! and while i linger on my successfully re-ordered 4 (nee 2: 2 pancakes, 2 eggs, hashbrowns, orange juice), i'm willing to bet that nara will catch his spot for a television gig before summer's out. first, we get T3 on "who wants to be a millionaire", then it's me and euge on "college gameday", now nara's turn! which makes me all the more excited to see other members of fluor 803 turn up on tv. any takers for "ben m. on maury povich?" anyone? anyone?
surprisesurprisesurprise shout-out to the huntington gardens in pasadena, california. the dr. w's took the cdr. c's there on sunday pre-flight. wondrous gardens. beautiful gardens. in fact, i'd say that they were the nicest gardens i've ever been in. that they are the only gardens i've ever been in is beside the point. best part was the barefeet i managed to get into for the zen garden (that and the patient zen-like photo of said garden, muy impresivo...)
finally, aloha and macadamia nut shout-out to the people of oah'u. i had a blast there. even the zealot-prophet who drove the shuttle from the airport at 10pm when we were all worn out from flying was a hoot. from surfing (with the locoboyz) to driving the north shore to catching up on sleep or stealing free internet to email papers that were due, it was a perfect vacation. i only wish it lasted longer or that i was fabulously wealthy. both would equal more fun. but, poor as i am, i still felt rich when i left. and it had everything to do with the beautiful family i am surrounded by. that and the "drive with aloha" signs. but seriously, the good dr. and his family of showstoppers was just so great to see and hang out with again. when they move to the far side of the globe for 3 years and you have just enough time and money to revel as far west as riverside, you take your moments where you can. it's mind-blowing to know the next time i see skylar and arianna, they'll (probably) be walking/talking with no memories of crying every time i tried to say hi to them!
ps shoutout to jenna and jeff, the happy couple. and pps bonus shoutout to thatch and his upcoming digs in hermosa beach. having seen riverside, i can't wait for a reason to visit in hermosa! (just kidding, sharon. riverside was lovely...) besides which:
college station << riverside
an engineer should get that one...
peace and aloh'a! --goose
now: BEAT THE BRUINS!
Sunday, November 05, 2006
november? NOVEMBER???!!! No WAY!
dearest all-
it seems like it was just the other day that i was diligently awaiting my bedroom set and sweating away the 100-degree days and nights.
wait. that's not right. it seems like so long ago! and we don't know if this is a good thing. suddenly, i am 2 weeks away from being in hawaii (almost to the hour!) and here's a partial list of things i still have on the table: 2 philosophy essays (i've long since dropped the "geography" from that class when in reality it's a philosophical discussion every monday and wednesday), possibly only 1 GIS assignment (due next thursday), 1 literature review (15pp.), 1 research proposal (15pp.), 1 group GIS project (unknown), and perhaps something like 200pp. of reading that can always be done. add in the grading of the student labs (i can smell a group hand-in this week...), 2 proctorings (feeling more and more like proctologings...), and who knows what else. i'm sure i'm missing something. oh. that's right. i'm lecturing again on tuesday.
so of course, that means that 1) i'm watching the nfl on tv and 2) i spent the greater part of saturday (almost 13 hours???) hanging out with brewpub gary of st.croix when he flew up for the oklahoma game. he's an aggie and had a ticket and so we did the whole day thing. man, do i wish that it was an early game! walking into the house at 1am from a 7pm game is ridiculuous. and before you think the usual scenario, i want to say that the great majority of the time was spent waiting for his classmates and/or taking down a tailgate that i barely got to check out. add in a classic "great moments in betting history" game where the aggies lost by 1 (to cover the spread) on a game where they kicked a field goal from the 2 when they have a running back who weighs a legitimate 275lbs and 2 downs to get in. instead, down 10 points, they end up kicking 3 field goals in the 4th quarter. nice! idiots. and the clincher? the school known for the "12th man" had a 12-men on the field penalty that allowed ou to get a 1st down and kill the clock. nice!
but the semester is rapidly coming to a close. in fact, i will be on a plane to st.croix in 5 weeks. which is a nice thought. there's so much i miss there that has, despite how fast this semester has flown by, made each day a lot slower than otherwise.
and of course, this week has a bunch of appeal for this particular observer, as the elections FINALLY finish up and all the exciting ads are taken off the air and people elected can pretend that they will work together after ripping each other and their families and their names and their base apart for the past 6 months. not that i particularly think that the democrats are much better than the republicans as a choice (see my opus on "why only idiots and fools go into politics these days"), but i think at some point the popular voice that's been crying out about how the president has been conducting business needs to be heard. so if congress changes hands, hopefully gwb will stop listening to his toadies/shadowy overlords and start listening to popular sentiment for the first time in 6 years.
on the other hand, if you've seen the princeton hacking of the diebold computer voting machines, maybe we're all living in some orwellian world (do a youtube search... it's fairly engrossing except for the droning of the princeton IT professor) and whether you vote blue/red/kinky (as in friedman, kids! he's running for guv'nor here in texas!), it doesn't matter. though, if you ask me, the republicans should be worried that some anarchist group will do the hacking and only dems will win. or, if they have a sense of humor, bugs bunny.
but, like everything else on my docket, this election season too shall pass. and to tell you the truth, i don't think i've ever been as excited for thanksgiving and december. and that's a good thing.
--goose
double dose of shout-outs:
first shot of shout-out goes to StateFarm Insurance's comprehensive statistical database on car accidents. you can know all sorts of things on that web site. don't believe me? just watch "who wants to be a millionaire" on february 27th. then you'll understand.
second shot of shout-out goes to my cousin scott and his poor psu nittany lions. noting the usc flag showcased at espn's college game day panel show (as eugene called it), scott wondered if that was me. yes, yes it was. though i was not the guy in the blue helmet who screamed. i wore a yellow shirt and was briefly visible at the end of the usc segment when they cut to commercial. why is this important? because scott ribbed me about the osu loss. just after his joepa broke a leg from a collision (thanks! state farm! i know how to spell that now!) at the wisconsin game. clearly, one is not yet capable of picking on usc without threat of reprisal yet. though hopefully joepa is okay. he's unfortunately at the age where you can die from a broken bone. i sense retirement.
it seems like it was just the other day that i was diligently awaiting my bedroom set and sweating away the 100-degree days and nights.
wait. that's not right. it seems like so long ago! and we don't know if this is a good thing. suddenly, i am 2 weeks away from being in hawaii (almost to the hour!) and here's a partial list of things i still have on the table: 2 philosophy essays (i've long since dropped the "geography" from that class when in reality it's a philosophical discussion every monday and wednesday), possibly only 1 GIS assignment (due next thursday), 1 literature review (15pp.), 1 research proposal (15pp.), 1 group GIS project (unknown), and perhaps something like 200pp. of reading that can always be done. add in the grading of the student labs (i can smell a group hand-in this week...), 2 proctorings (feeling more and more like proctologings...), and who knows what else. i'm sure i'm missing something. oh. that's right. i'm lecturing again on tuesday.
so of course, that means that 1) i'm watching the nfl on tv and 2) i spent the greater part of saturday (almost 13 hours???) hanging out with brewpub gary of st.croix when he flew up for the oklahoma game. he's an aggie and had a ticket and so we did the whole day thing. man, do i wish that it was an early game! walking into the house at 1am from a 7pm game is ridiculuous. and before you think the usual scenario, i want to say that the great majority of the time was spent waiting for his classmates and/or taking down a tailgate that i barely got to check out. add in a classic "great moments in betting history" game where the aggies lost by 1 (to cover the spread) on a game where they kicked a field goal from the 2 when they have a running back who weighs a legitimate 275lbs and 2 downs to get in. instead, down 10 points, they end up kicking 3 field goals in the 4th quarter. nice! idiots. and the clincher? the school known for the "12th man" had a 12-men on the field penalty that allowed ou to get a 1st down and kill the clock. nice!
but the semester is rapidly coming to a close. in fact, i will be on a plane to st.croix in 5 weeks. which is a nice thought. there's so much i miss there that has, despite how fast this semester has flown by, made each day a lot slower than otherwise.
and of course, this week has a bunch of appeal for this particular observer, as the elections FINALLY finish up and all the exciting ads are taken off the air and people elected can pretend that they will work together after ripping each other and their families and their names and their base apart for the past 6 months. not that i particularly think that the democrats are much better than the republicans as a choice (see my opus on "why only idiots and fools go into politics these days"), but i think at some point the popular voice that's been crying out about how the president has been conducting business needs to be heard. so if congress changes hands, hopefully gwb will stop listening to his toadies/shadowy overlords and start listening to popular sentiment for the first time in 6 years.
on the other hand, if you've seen the princeton hacking of the diebold computer voting machines, maybe we're all living in some orwellian world (do a youtube search... it's fairly engrossing except for the droning of the princeton IT professor) and whether you vote blue/red/kinky (as in friedman, kids! he's running for guv'nor here in texas!), it doesn't matter. though, if you ask me, the republicans should be worried that some anarchist group will do the hacking and only dems will win. or, if they have a sense of humor, bugs bunny.
but, like everything else on my docket, this election season too shall pass. and to tell you the truth, i don't think i've ever been as excited for thanksgiving and december. and that's a good thing.
--goose
double dose of shout-outs:
first shot of shout-out goes to StateFarm Insurance's comprehensive statistical database on car accidents. you can know all sorts of things on that web site. don't believe me? just watch "who wants to be a millionaire" on february 27th. then you'll understand.
second shot of shout-out goes to my cousin scott and his poor psu nittany lions. noting the usc flag showcased at espn's college game day panel show (as eugene called it), scott wondered if that was me. yes, yes it was. though i was not the guy in the blue helmet who screamed. i wore a yellow shirt and was briefly visible at the end of the usc segment when they cut to commercial. why is this important? because scott ribbed me about the osu loss. just after his joepa broke a leg from a collision (thanks! state farm! i know how to spell that now!) at the wisconsin game. clearly, one is not yet capable of picking on usc without threat of reprisal yet. though hopefully joepa is okay. he's unfortunately at the age where you can die from a broken bone. i sense retirement.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
the sunday post-wrap party shout-outs!
a "well, we looked like garbage, didn't we?!!" shout-out to the usc turnover margin. the team that led the country in turnover margin over the past 3 seasons gave up 4 yesterday in their 33-31 loss to oregon state. try as they might to tie it up with a 2-point conversion at the end of the 4th quarter (despite being down 33-10 midway through the 3rd quarter!!!) the trojans deserved the blocked pass. the good news coming out of a game i had a feeling would be tough: usc's offense seemed to wake up and realize (again) that maybe, with the most talented quarterbacks in the country, we should be passing first. chauncey washington should be forced to carry a football around campus this week to work on protecting it. booty's 405 yds and steve smith (he'll need an initial when he plays in the nfl next year. someone needs to find his middle name...) catching (nearly) everything made me feel better about the next several weeks, when, not only can usc stay in the hunt with wins over notre dame (knocking them out of the bcs!) and oregon and cal (to win the pac-10), but now maybe they won't play with the monkey on their back that is the alumni associations around the country holding their breaths every saturday. just play boys!
in other football-related shout-outs, a big WHOOPIEWHOOPIEWHOOPIE!!! shout-out to the wv mountaineers in prep for their big louisville game. that undefeated #3 position is theirs for the taking. remember the name: steve slayton, listed in the mountaineer websites as "superback".
a shout-out-ala-"sports guy" UIC scale of 9.5 for espn filming mike ditka reading a children's story to little kids. a nice way to enjoy my cuppa while soaking up all the upcoming nfl info. we need more unintentional comedy on television, whether it's a stupid commercial or a talking idiot, i love awkward moments on tv. or youtube (which i watch more frequently). best of the week: the dave letterman interview of bill o'reilly. if democrats and independent-thinking individuals don't shake up congress in two tuesdays, i think i'm going to brush off my australian citizenship application.
a happy halloween shout-out to everyone's inner child! while shopping for groceries yesterday (and hopefully filling the cupboards for the next three weeks when i LEAVE FOR HAWAI'I!!!) i had the best moment when i found the hershey's mini-pack. you know: hersheys, special dark, mr.goodbar, and krackle). always my favorite score at halloween. i bought two bags and have no intention of sharing with the neighborhood kiddies. that's what good-and-plentys are for!
hugs, kisses and happy central standard time (did you re-set your clock?) to everyone!
in other football-related shout-outs, a big WHOOPIEWHOOPIEWHOOPIE!!! shout-out to the wv mountaineers in prep for their big louisville game. that undefeated #3 position is theirs for the taking. remember the name: steve slayton, listed in the mountaineer websites as "superback".
a shout-out-ala-"sports guy" UIC scale of 9.5 for espn filming mike ditka reading a children's story to little kids. a nice way to enjoy my cuppa while soaking up all the upcoming nfl info. we need more unintentional comedy on television, whether it's a stupid commercial or a talking idiot, i love awkward moments on tv. or youtube (which i watch more frequently). best of the week: the dave letterman interview of bill o'reilly. if democrats and independent-thinking individuals don't shake up congress in two tuesdays, i think i'm going to brush off my australian citizenship application.
a happy halloween shout-out to everyone's inner child! while shopping for groceries yesterday (and hopefully filling the cupboards for the next three weeks when i LEAVE FOR HAWAI'I!!!) i had the best moment when i found the hershey's mini-pack. you know: hersheys, special dark, mr.goodbar, and krackle). always my favorite score at halloween. i bought two bags and have no intention of sharing with the neighborhood kiddies. that's what good-and-plentys are for!
hugs, kisses and happy central standard time (did you re-set your clock?) to everyone!
Saturday, October 28, 2006
the week that was, and cubs in 2007!!!
dearest all-
the cardinals finally cleaned up the ghost of detroit past a little while ago and of course, that means 1 thing: CUBS IN 2007!!!!
despite:
1) the fact that both me and good friend and sports authority nara w. of los angeles, ca agree that the cubs pitching staff is cursed, overworked, and destined to captain the titanic.
2) the cubs haven't won a world series in... 98 years. and with 30 teams in the major leagues, their technical odds are 1:30 or around 3.33% in any given year. that they haven't won since 1908 probably lowers those odds a bit. and, to paraphrase rick pitino: "mordecai brown isn't walking through that door. johnny evers isn't walking through that door..."
2a) on a positive note, the NL-central has represented the world series for the past three years (winning once), and have had at least one team in the NL championship since 2002. so, with 6 teams in the NL-central (stl, hou, cin, mil, pit, chi), the odds seem a bit better! hence the optimism.
2b) on a further positive note, when you boil it down, large-markets are helpful, and so in that regard, the cubs have a leg up on everyone except the yankees and red sox. and maybe the dodgers or mets. of course, if you notice, the cubs managed to be eliminated before the 4th of july this year, so maybe they don't have as much in common.
2c) on a final positive note, there's no way that the cubs can go through all those injuries again. can they? (please say the answer is no.)
so anyhoo, congrats to the st.louis cardinals. for a team cubbies hate, you looked a lot better than that high school team perfecting the 3-error inning representing the city of detroit. not to mention, as always when i discuss the cards, my dad does like stan "the man" musial.
on to other great and not-so-great moments in sports from this past week:
great moment #1: i FINALLY beat eugene in 8-ball this past sunday without the benefit of his sudden loss of skill due to consumption of bridgeport ipa (a great beer from portland, oregon!) over time. in fact, i beat him twice on the same night before the game got ugly and trick shots were simply not missing the cue. of course, we did learn that long pool sessions are best played on the early weekend days rather than sunday when the 9am monday geographic philosophy class rears its intellectual head. OI!
not-so-great moment #1: with an off week for usc, we were forced to watch brutal big-12 football. when 2 channels are both showing the HUGE baylor-kansas game, you know you are stuck in a provincial backwater. of course, baylor is in waco, texas (which is a pretty big town north of here on the way to dallas), but more importantly: IT'S BAYLOR!!! that's like being forced to have one channel devoted to army football... oh... wait... that'd be channel 123 on suddenlink cox cable here. never mind. fortunately, the trojans are back on the tube this weekend, which means: BRATWURST!
great moment #2: earlier this week, there was some concern about a potential lost bet with a classmate on a GIS project where we had to design the future super-highways for texas and i had a free coffee riding on a better grade. and who brought their A-game and got the only 10/10 on the assignment? can't wait for the java!
not-so-great moment #2: while succumbing to a cold/fever on tuesday, i went to the gym (of course!) and, roughly 15 minutes into my workout, i left with what i would describe as an evil headache. so i texted the great dr. carr of guam and he assured me it was neither an aneurysm nor a migraine, but more likely a focused-point headache. which is good to know i guess.
anyhow, happy halloween. my costume? we don't know yet. hope yours is better!
the three-second shout-outs:
1st second: shout-out to my cousins brenna and scott for the homecoming photos that somehow made it to my inbox. you two are catching up to me! and to think i can recall when you two were knee-high to my knee! congratulations: you are my first "i remember you when you were a baby!" story. thanks. my AARP letter should be arriving any day now.
2nd second: shout-out to good friend and airline pilot T3 of jersey city, nj, for the nice false alarm today. AFTER i drank 3 cups of coffee and was afraid to walk down the hall from my office to the powder room. it was very nearly a not-so-great sports moment #3 this week. but, thanks to my iron bladder, i survived!
3rd second: congrats to the wondertwins for winning the "cutest" costume award at the guam hospital halloween party.
the cardinals finally cleaned up the ghost of detroit past a little while ago and of course, that means 1 thing: CUBS IN 2007!!!!
despite:
1) the fact that both me and good friend and sports authority nara w. of los angeles, ca agree that the cubs pitching staff is cursed, overworked, and destined to captain the titanic.
2) the cubs haven't won a world series in... 98 years. and with 30 teams in the major leagues, their technical odds are 1:30 or around 3.33% in any given year. that they haven't won since 1908 probably lowers those odds a bit. and, to paraphrase rick pitino: "mordecai brown isn't walking through that door. johnny evers isn't walking through that door..."
2a) on a positive note, the NL-central has represented the world series for the past three years (winning once), and have had at least one team in the NL championship since 2002. so, with 6 teams in the NL-central (stl, hou, cin, mil, pit, chi), the odds seem a bit better! hence the optimism.
2b) on a further positive note, when you boil it down, large-markets are helpful, and so in that regard, the cubs have a leg up on everyone except the yankees and red sox. and maybe the dodgers or mets. of course, if you notice, the cubs managed to be eliminated before the 4th of july this year, so maybe they don't have as much in common.
2c) on a final positive note, there's no way that the cubs can go through all those injuries again. can they? (please say the answer is no.)
so anyhoo, congrats to the st.louis cardinals. for a team cubbies hate, you looked a lot better than that high school team perfecting the 3-error inning representing the city of detroit. not to mention, as always when i discuss the cards, my dad does like stan "the man" musial.
on to other great and not-so-great moments in sports from this past week:
great moment #1: i FINALLY beat eugene in 8-ball this past sunday without the benefit of his sudden loss of skill due to consumption of bridgeport ipa (a great beer from portland, oregon!) over time. in fact, i beat him twice on the same night before the game got ugly and trick shots were simply not missing the cue. of course, we did learn that long pool sessions are best played on the early weekend days rather than sunday when the 9am monday geographic philosophy class rears its intellectual head. OI!
not-so-great moment #1: with an off week for usc, we were forced to watch brutal big-12 football. when 2 channels are both showing the HUGE baylor-kansas game, you know you are stuck in a provincial backwater. of course, baylor is in waco, texas (which is a pretty big town north of here on the way to dallas), but more importantly: IT'S BAYLOR!!! that's like being forced to have one channel devoted to army football... oh... wait... that'd be channel 123 on suddenlink cox cable here. never mind. fortunately, the trojans are back on the tube this weekend, which means: BRATWURST!
great moment #2: earlier this week, there was some concern about a potential lost bet with a classmate on a GIS project where we had to design the future super-highways for texas and i had a free coffee riding on a better grade. and who brought their A-game and got the only 10/10 on the assignment? can't wait for the java!
not-so-great moment #2: while succumbing to a cold/fever on tuesday, i went to the gym (of course!) and, roughly 15 minutes into my workout, i left with what i would describe as an evil headache. so i texted the great dr. carr of guam and he assured me it was neither an aneurysm nor a migraine, but more likely a focused-point headache. which is good to know i guess.
anyhow, happy halloween. my costume? we don't know yet. hope yours is better!
the three-second shout-outs:
1st second: shout-out to my cousins brenna and scott for the homecoming photos that somehow made it to my inbox. you two are catching up to me! and to think i can recall when you two were knee-high to my knee! congratulations: you are my first "i remember you when you were a baby!" story. thanks. my AARP letter should be arriving any day now.
2nd second: shout-out to good friend and airline pilot T3 of jersey city, nj, for the nice false alarm today. AFTER i drank 3 cups of coffee and was afraid to walk down the hall from my office to the powder room. it was very nearly a not-so-great sports moment #3 this week. but, thanks to my iron bladder, i survived!
3rd second: congrats to the wondertwins for winning the "cutest" costume award at the guam hospital halloween party.
Friday, October 20, 2006
the 3rd triennial friday shout-outs!
HAPPY POWER-TOOLS-ARE-FOR-ME! shout-out to: my health insurance plan! as of 1 december, 2006, i will (again) be insured for basic health and dental coverage! now where was that fork and outlet i was going to play with?
happy go-for-the-gold! shout-out to the triple-t of jersey city! he knows... he knows... and to think his dominance began with street fighter II...
happy thanks-for-wasting-my-thursday! shoutout to the sublime stacy h. of washington, dc! in case you haven't seen it yet, do a search for the "new 7 wonders of the world" and get your vote in. of course, though i had a grand time deciding between the eiffel tower (had to be one of your seven, stacy!) and the great wall, i was wondering why not do a "modern 7 wonders" and a "pre-1800 7 wonders!" so that you can get technological marvels like the eiffel towers and feats of human ingenuity for stuff like the alhambra in spain. of course, why monumental works like the great wall or the pyramids that were basically done on the backs of slaves should be included is beyound me. first nomination for a modern wonder: versailles.
--goose
happy go-for-the-gold! shout-out to the triple-t of jersey city! he knows... he knows... and to think his dominance began with street fighter II...
happy thanks-for-wasting-my-thursday! shoutout to the sublime stacy h. of washington, dc! in case you haven't seen it yet, do a search for the "new 7 wonders of the world" and get your vote in. of course, though i had a grand time deciding between the eiffel tower (had to be one of your seven, stacy!) and the great wall, i was wondering why not do a "modern 7 wonders" and a "pre-1800 7 wonders!" so that you can get technological marvels like the eiffel towers and feats of human ingenuity for stuff like the alhambra in spain. of course, why monumental works like the great wall or the pyramids that were basically done on the backs of slaves should be included is beyound me. first nomination for a modern wonder: versailles.
--goose
why the mets lost, and other interesting tidbits
dearest all-
this is a quickie blog hit. BOOM! RIGHT THERE!
anyhoo, an appeal to all my journalism homeys out there making a dollar, don't turn into the following: tim mccarver, mike lupica, or any of the other blowhards who, despite watching the same game i saw (through a double-nap thursday night! Say YES! to sleep!), write up the most ridiculous things or (in mccarver's case, a career of dumbness in the spoken word category) say drivel. drivel i say. drivel.
here are the facts: wagner inspired about as much confidence as bush's iraq plans. heilman was a logical 9th inning call as such he 1) was not wagner's hanging curveball or dead-plane flat fastball, and 2) facing the bottom of the order, including one of the flying molina brothers (yadier in this case), whose father, despite teaching them all great defensive catching skills (there are like 3? 4? brothers catching in the mlb), apparently never showed them the way to hit. so yadier got a home run, of course, and the mets lose and the dopes say it's so-and-so's fault, knowing you can't prove them wrong b/c had it ended differently, everyone would be high-fiving willie randolph for the foresight to not bring out this post-season's mitch williams. but why did yadier get a home run? nobody is saying this, so i must: heillman threw 8 first-pitch changeups. 8! the easiest pitch to hit when you know it's coming, and perhaps the hardest to recover from/for when not. every batter in the 8th got the dead fish for strike 1. as did every batter in the 9th. so go figure, a catch with an eye for pitches (hence, the catcher position) and in tune with the game, sits on the pitch and muscled it out.
and nobody is saying this. lupica blames heilman / randolph for not bringing in wagner. some bozo at ny post called heilman's pitch a fastball.
so my appeal to everyone in the industry is this: don't spin the game. the home run (and the mets' season effectively) was the result of a pitcher going to the well 1 time too many to get ahead of the count with a first-pitch strike. and if a flying molina has a greenlight on the 0-0, so should beltran, who saw a slider that had less break than mine coast over the heart of the plate with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom frame.
dopes.
with that said, i couldn't be more excited for this world series (in instances excluding the cubs). the tigers, with personal managerial fave jim leyland (whom my grandfather just loved) and his club of mis-fits, has-beens, and never-will-be's (to misquote major league) against one of the classiest franchises in baseball. from soup (the starting nine) to nuts (their fans), the cardinals are classy. and since both teams are in the midwest, i can't wait to see tim mccarver moon over the tigers every night while joe buck (a cardinals' week-day broadcaster) tries to conceal his enthusiasm for the cards. not that i hate joe buck.
ok, that's a lie. he's garbage too.
but in the grand scheme of things, baseball fans win here. with no ny teams, we can get by the inevitable post-mortem every night. just play the game, fellas!
on a side note: is it just me or are there other people out there who think that we should have a broadcaster playoffs too? i don't know about you, but i'm about sick and tired of being forced to listen to mccarver/buck for every world series when, in reality, they are perhaps the 10th and 14th best guys doing the national scene. can't we get jon miller in there somehow? mike breen? gary thorne and bill clement? why not vin scully? the ghost of chick hearn and harry caray? of course, i will probably watch the games on mute or listen to espn radio and then forget about the utter garbage that are these broadcast teams until i'm forced upon the idiocy that is billy packer during march madness.
--goose
this is a quickie blog hit. BOOM! RIGHT THERE!
anyhoo, an appeal to all my journalism homeys out there making a dollar, don't turn into the following: tim mccarver, mike lupica, or any of the other blowhards who, despite watching the same game i saw (through a double-nap thursday night! Say YES! to sleep!), write up the most ridiculous things or (in mccarver's case, a career of dumbness in the spoken word category) say drivel. drivel i say. drivel.
here are the facts: wagner inspired about as much confidence as bush's iraq plans. heilman was a logical 9th inning call as such he 1) was not wagner's hanging curveball or dead-plane flat fastball, and 2) facing the bottom of the order, including one of the flying molina brothers (yadier in this case), whose father, despite teaching them all great defensive catching skills (there are like 3? 4? brothers catching in the mlb), apparently never showed them the way to hit. so yadier got a home run, of course, and the mets lose and the dopes say it's so-and-so's fault, knowing you can't prove them wrong b/c had it ended differently, everyone would be high-fiving willie randolph for the foresight to not bring out this post-season's mitch williams. but why did yadier get a home run? nobody is saying this, so i must: heillman threw 8 first-pitch changeups. 8! the easiest pitch to hit when you know it's coming, and perhaps the hardest to recover from/for when not. every batter in the 8th got the dead fish for strike 1. as did every batter in the 9th. so go figure, a catch with an eye for pitches (hence, the catcher position) and in tune with the game, sits on the pitch and muscled it out.
and nobody is saying this. lupica blames heilman / randolph for not bringing in wagner. some bozo at ny post called heilman's pitch a fastball.
so my appeal to everyone in the industry is this: don't spin the game. the home run (and the mets' season effectively) was the result of a pitcher going to the well 1 time too many to get ahead of the count with a first-pitch strike. and if a flying molina has a greenlight on the 0-0, so should beltran, who saw a slider that had less break than mine coast over the heart of the plate with the bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom frame.
dopes.
with that said, i couldn't be more excited for this world series (in instances excluding the cubs). the tigers, with personal managerial fave jim leyland (whom my grandfather just loved) and his club of mis-fits, has-beens, and never-will-be's (to misquote major league) against one of the classiest franchises in baseball. from soup (the starting nine) to nuts (their fans), the cardinals are classy. and since both teams are in the midwest, i can't wait to see tim mccarver moon over the tigers every night while joe buck (a cardinals' week-day broadcaster) tries to conceal his enthusiasm for the cards. not that i hate joe buck.
ok, that's a lie. he's garbage too.
but in the grand scheme of things, baseball fans win here. with no ny teams, we can get by the inevitable post-mortem every night. just play the game, fellas!
on a side note: is it just me or are there other people out there who think that we should have a broadcaster playoffs too? i don't know about you, but i'm about sick and tired of being forced to listen to mccarver/buck for every world series when, in reality, they are perhaps the 10th and 14th best guys doing the national scene. can't we get jon miller in there somehow? mike breen? gary thorne and bill clement? why not vin scully? the ghost of chick hearn and harry caray? of course, i will probably watch the games on mute or listen to espn radio and then forget about the utter garbage that are these broadcast teams until i'm forced upon the idiocy that is billy packer during march madness.
--goose
Monday, October 16, 2006
an open letter and critique of big-12 football
dearest all-
such was the excitement this weekend when fellow monk euge scored two free (FREE!) tickets to the big texas a&m / mizzou game at venerable kyle field. having never attended a big-12 contest before, i was fairly excited by the prospect, if only because being at a football game precludes one from studying or paper writing or GIS mapping. but to say i was pumped for it would be a bit overwrought. indeed, though it was a exciting contest and fairly well-played, i couldn't help but notice the differences between my usc memories and the aggies experience. and mind you, these teams (late-90s usc and mid-00s aggies) are very similar. so it's not like i'm comparing the recent usc lovefest.
issue 1) saying "fighting aggie". they are aggies. everyone knows that. notre dame is the fighting irish, sometimes abbreviated to "the irish". but a&m students call themselves "aggies" and not "the aggies" or "the fighting aggies". domers don't call themselves "irish". a&m needs to resolve this issue. i thought aggies was sufficient, but a fighting aggie sounds much more impressive. they need to pick one and use it. perhaps that's why they haven't won a big-12 title since like 1993.
issue 2) fight songs. a&m, i must admit, has this great thing where everyone, while singing the B-section of a song i want to say is titled "eyes of texas", join arms and sway back and forth in unison. the sight is pretty darn cool. 90,000 people doing a oktoberfest sway is a positive. the negative? that song is about 4 verses too long and far too intricate to understand. usc keeps it simple, much to our delight and our opponents annoyance. and it sounds fervent. "eyes of texas" is practically a serenade made worse when the alumni mumble through the 2nd half of every verse. recommendation: shorten it and yell out "Beat Texas!" at the end of every song.
issue 3) get your arch-rival straight. you'd think it was u.texas. but sometimes you hear TCU, who i don't even think is even in the big-12. not that either care. a&m is almost guaranteed to lose to both based on how everyone talks. recommendation: improve upon issue 5b to get more blue-chippers to want to come here.
issue 4) the band. now the a&m fighting aggie-proud band is a sight to behold. smallish in size, but formidable in routine. they do this superb half-time show where they march back and forth, making crazy little patterns as each row walks inside/outside/between/away/towards other rows. it looks a bit like, when they are all bunched up together, something pulsing. but guess what they do that to? eyes of texas! or yellow rose of texas! which we've already heard a few times. so usc plays "sing, sing, sing" at every half time. at least they keep it for the show. recommendation: anything from outkast or kanye west. or the killers.
issue 4b) the band. usc's band plays like ALL GAME! not so at a&m. they have malt shop boys who lead chants.
issue 5) the maltshop boys. actually, they're a lot like the yell-boys/fish whatever you want to call them, if you dressed up the yellfish in a costume from back to the future. all white shirt and pants, the 1950s crewcut and LOTS OF SPIRIT! now you're supposed to go to "yell practice" the night before to get all the hand signals, but, sitting in basically an alumni section, they seem to be fairly well-known already. but what does "form! form! form! shoot!" mean? i don't get it. making a pistol with your hands? get it. trying to do an alligator but forgetting the top part of the mouth i do not. plus, their antics don't match what's going on the field. it's almost as if they say, "biff! i want to do the form form form! cheer now!" "no, macfly. we're doing the form shoot! sway!" cheer. what they forget is that it's 4th down and a&m is punting from their own 21... speaking of punts though, i'm proud to say i saw a 79-yd punt!!! the mizzou guy kicked the crap out of that ball. there is something majestic that is unique about such a boot. before it even was halfway out of the stadium, euge and i looked at each other and said something along the lines of, "my goodness didn't he ever kick that squarely!" too bad that might have been mizzou's 2nd half highlight. or have i not mentioned that a&m won yet? WHo-OP! fighting aggies!
issue 5b) the maltshop boys. specifically: they are THE ONLY CHEERING PEOPLE ON THE FIELD! i.e. NO CHEERLEADERS! less michael j. fox, more vivica (or samantha even!)
issue 6) the whole standing thing. fine tradition, this 12th man thing. very cool. plus your team jersey never goes out of style (ask euge and his "brad otton" #10, which is finally back in vogue with john david booty...) and like the idea of the "the students stand as if ready to enter" thing. but guess what: they ALL SIT during the commercial timeouts. i've never seen a stadium more tuned in to the commercial guy who wears the funky shirt and stands on the field when the game is on commercial break. okay, this isn't exactly true. most sit. the remainder do this sad little "rest on your knees with your ass stuck in the face of the guy behind you" move. don't be proud. sit down and save some energy for those big 3rd down defensive stands. or at least, don't look like a ninny who refuses to sit down but is so worn out they do the ass-kick-out straight up into row 30 seat 11.
issue 7) every school has their own 1st-down cheer. usc's is the whole "move the chains, move the chains, move.the.chains!" and "First down, trojans!" and whatever other dumb thing we came up with in those dark days. a&m's? a quick whoop! the announcer says "1st down fighting aggies!" and everyone goes, "Who-OP!" hardly inspiring.
issue 8) the making out. so a&m scores. couples start making out. which may or may not be fun to watch. but here's the flaw: they are not equal-opportunity. no one tapped me or euge on the shoulder for a peck. it seems exclusionary. though they do have a cannon. usc needs a cannon. and me and euge need our dates. or lip gloss and a silent pact.
issue 9) no song that mocks arch-rival. sure, they say something about u.texas looking bad or something in the 3rd verse of "eyes of texas", but ask any trojan how much they patiently (or not so much) wait for "tusk" just to start swearing at fucla. back in the day, when the game got out of hand, you'd hear fans going, "TUSKKKKKKKKKK!" like they were at a skynrd concert and hadn't heard freebird yet. if a&m wants to climb back up to the pantheon of big-12 giant, they need a tusk.
issue 10) a dry campus + a dry stadium + southern baptist fundamentals = boring fan base. now i'm not prescribing drunken debauchery, but when you're near that one funny drunk guy who keeps making up things to say to the refs or the teams, it keeps you in the game. as always, beer makes things better. sadly, a&m is without. and that's why they are going to be an 7-8 win team for the forseeable future.
on a positive note, me and euge are 1-0, thanks to some great defense in the early-going (a stripped ball on a sure touchdown that prevented mizzou from taking a 7-0 lead 20 seconds into the game) and a large running back (about 255 lbs.) we're expecting even better free tickets if they want to challenge for a good bowl game. and though euge doesn't like the "Sway dance", i think it's great. if i can't have my beer, i still want to see everything swaying and moving. and that's a start.
of course, we were much more excited at the end of the big 24-19 win (i think that's what it was) to know we hadn't missed the usc/asu kick-off. brats, beer, good fans and great seats made for a great night watching usc squeak another one out. at this rate, i'll be a nervous wreck walking into the coliseum for usc/cal in november. it's like the carr bros. curse is gearing up for my return. but, loyal trojan readers, it's not too late. my swiss bank account is open and awaiting your nigerian lotto winnings. email me for deposit information.
--goose
double-pump quick shout-out: any fellow trojans who have noticed usc's abilities this year are eerily similar to the 2002 ohio state buckeyes, who played like 10 consecutive 1-point victories prior to their big game against nebraska. one can hope. one can hope.
tom selleck as magnum, p.i. shout out to the detroit tigers. if the red sox followed by the white sox aren't enough to tell me that 1) the cubs can win a world series, then if the tigers continue this magical fall of 2006 to a title, then i know 2) god is cruel and obviously a fan of the DH. of course, it will be easy to cheer for los tigres if the hated mets make the world series. if the cardinals win, however, i might be a little confused. SIKE!
gnarly-1980s-lingo-reference shoutout to the clayter b/c every time i misspell gnarly. DOUBLE SIKE!
DOUBLE SIKE SHOUT-OUT TO excellent cousins beth and tom l. of pittsburghish, pa. with 2 adorable tykes running around with a combined age of something like 3.2 yrs., they are happy to report that there are twins who will be joining the bedlam sometime next march or april! 4 under 4!!! having done the stressful waiting game with the skylar and arianna, i wish beth a nice, happy, flawless, perfect pregnancy. because it'll definitely be the end of your peace and quiet once the dubloons arrive.
promised promo shoutout to the mayor mccheese, if only b/c i think i'm 2 months away from seeing his silliness back on the st.croix. now if there was only something that would keep me busy until then...
such was the excitement this weekend when fellow monk euge scored two free (FREE!) tickets to the big texas a&m / mizzou game at venerable kyle field. having never attended a big-12 contest before, i was fairly excited by the prospect, if only because being at a football game precludes one from studying or paper writing or GIS mapping. but to say i was pumped for it would be a bit overwrought. indeed, though it was a exciting contest and fairly well-played, i couldn't help but notice the differences between my usc memories and the aggies experience. and mind you, these teams (late-90s usc and mid-00s aggies) are very similar. so it's not like i'm comparing the recent usc lovefest.
issue 1) saying "fighting aggie". they are aggies. everyone knows that. notre dame is the fighting irish, sometimes abbreviated to "the irish". but a&m students call themselves "aggies" and not "the aggies" or "the fighting aggies". domers don't call themselves "irish". a&m needs to resolve this issue. i thought aggies was sufficient, but a fighting aggie sounds much more impressive. they need to pick one and use it. perhaps that's why they haven't won a big-12 title since like 1993.
issue 2) fight songs. a&m, i must admit, has this great thing where everyone, while singing the B-section of a song i want to say is titled "eyes of texas", join arms and sway back and forth in unison. the sight is pretty darn cool. 90,000 people doing a oktoberfest sway is a positive. the negative? that song is about 4 verses too long and far too intricate to understand. usc keeps it simple, much to our delight and our opponents annoyance. and it sounds fervent. "eyes of texas" is practically a serenade made worse when the alumni mumble through the 2nd half of every verse. recommendation: shorten it and yell out "Beat Texas!" at the end of every song.
issue 3) get your arch-rival straight. you'd think it was u.texas. but sometimes you hear TCU, who i don't even think is even in the big-12. not that either care. a&m is almost guaranteed to lose to both based on how everyone talks. recommendation: improve upon issue 5b to get more blue-chippers to want to come here.
issue 4) the band. now the a&m fighting aggie-proud band is a sight to behold. smallish in size, but formidable in routine. they do this superb half-time show where they march back and forth, making crazy little patterns as each row walks inside/outside/between/away/towards other rows. it looks a bit like, when they are all bunched up together, something pulsing. but guess what they do that to? eyes of texas! or yellow rose of texas! which we've already heard a few times. so usc plays "sing, sing, sing" at every half time. at least they keep it for the show. recommendation: anything from outkast or kanye west. or the killers.
issue 4b) the band. usc's band plays like ALL GAME! not so at a&m. they have malt shop boys who lead chants.
issue 5) the maltshop boys. actually, they're a lot like the yell-boys/fish whatever you want to call them, if you dressed up the yellfish in a costume from back to the future. all white shirt and pants, the 1950s crewcut and LOTS OF SPIRIT! now you're supposed to go to "yell practice" the night before to get all the hand signals, but, sitting in basically an alumni section, they seem to be fairly well-known already. but what does "form! form! form! shoot!" mean? i don't get it. making a pistol with your hands? get it. trying to do an alligator but forgetting the top part of the mouth i do not. plus, their antics don't match what's going on the field. it's almost as if they say, "biff! i want to do the form form form! cheer now!" "no, macfly. we're doing the form shoot! sway!" cheer. what they forget is that it's 4th down and a&m is punting from their own 21... speaking of punts though, i'm proud to say i saw a 79-yd punt!!! the mizzou guy kicked the crap out of that ball. there is something majestic that is unique about such a boot. before it even was halfway out of the stadium, euge and i looked at each other and said something along the lines of, "my goodness didn't he ever kick that squarely!" too bad that might have been mizzou's 2nd half highlight. or have i not mentioned that a&m won yet? WHo-OP! fighting aggies!
issue 5b) the maltshop boys. specifically: they are THE ONLY CHEERING PEOPLE ON THE FIELD! i.e. NO CHEERLEADERS! less michael j. fox, more vivica (or samantha even!)
issue 6) the whole standing thing. fine tradition, this 12th man thing. very cool. plus your team jersey never goes out of style (ask euge and his "brad otton" #10, which is finally back in vogue with john david booty...) and like the idea of the "the students stand as if ready to enter" thing. but guess what: they ALL SIT during the commercial timeouts. i've never seen a stadium more tuned in to the commercial guy who wears the funky shirt and stands on the field when the game is on commercial break. okay, this isn't exactly true. most sit. the remainder do this sad little "rest on your knees with your ass stuck in the face of the guy behind you" move. don't be proud. sit down and save some energy for those big 3rd down defensive stands. or at least, don't look like a ninny who refuses to sit down but is so worn out they do the ass-kick-out straight up into row 30 seat 11.
issue 7) every school has their own 1st-down cheer. usc's is the whole "move the chains, move the chains, move.the.chains!" and "First down, trojans!" and whatever other dumb thing we came up with in those dark days. a&m's? a quick whoop! the announcer says "1st down fighting aggies!" and everyone goes, "Who-OP!" hardly inspiring.
issue 8) the making out. so a&m scores. couples start making out. which may or may not be fun to watch. but here's the flaw: they are not equal-opportunity. no one tapped me or euge on the shoulder for a peck. it seems exclusionary. though they do have a cannon. usc needs a cannon. and me and euge need our dates. or lip gloss and a silent pact.
issue 9) no song that mocks arch-rival. sure, they say something about u.texas looking bad or something in the 3rd verse of "eyes of texas", but ask any trojan how much they patiently (or not so much) wait for "tusk" just to start swearing at fucla. back in the day, when the game got out of hand, you'd hear fans going, "TUSKKKKKKKKKK!" like they were at a skynrd concert and hadn't heard freebird yet. if a&m wants to climb back up to the pantheon of big-12 giant, they need a tusk.
issue 10) a dry campus + a dry stadium + southern baptist fundamentals = boring fan base. now i'm not prescribing drunken debauchery, but when you're near that one funny drunk guy who keeps making up things to say to the refs or the teams, it keeps you in the game. as always, beer makes things better. sadly, a&m is without. and that's why they are going to be an 7-8 win team for the forseeable future.
on a positive note, me and euge are 1-0, thanks to some great defense in the early-going (a stripped ball on a sure touchdown that prevented mizzou from taking a 7-0 lead 20 seconds into the game) and a large running back (about 255 lbs.) we're expecting even better free tickets if they want to challenge for a good bowl game. and though euge doesn't like the "Sway dance", i think it's great. if i can't have my beer, i still want to see everything swaying and moving. and that's a start.
of course, we were much more excited at the end of the big 24-19 win (i think that's what it was) to know we hadn't missed the usc/asu kick-off. brats, beer, good fans and great seats made for a great night watching usc squeak another one out. at this rate, i'll be a nervous wreck walking into the coliseum for usc/cal in november. it's like the carr bros. curse is gearing up for my return. but, loyal trojan readers, it's not too late. my swiss bank account is open and awaiting your nigerian lotto winnings. email me for deposit information.
--goose
double-pump quick shout-out: any fellow trojans who have noticed usc's abilities this year are eerily similar to the 2002 ohio state buckeyes, who played like 10 consecutive 1-point victories prior to their big game against nebraska. one can hope. one can hope.
tom selleck as magnum, p.i. shout out to the detroit tigers. if the red sox followed by the white sox aren't enough to tell me that 1) the cubs can win a world series, then if the tigers continue this magical fall of 2006 to a title, then i know 2) god is cruel and obviously a fan of the DH. of course, it will be easy to cheer for los tigres if the hated mets make the world series. if the cardinals win, however, i might be a little confused. SIKE!
gnarly-1980s-lingo-reference shoutout to the clayter b/c every time i misspell gnarly. DOUBLE SIKE!
DOUBLE SIKE SHOUT-OUT TO excellent cousins beth and tom l. of pittsburghish, pa. with 2 adorable tykes running around with a combined age of something like 3.2 yrs., they are happy to report that there are twins who will be joining the bedlam sometime next march or april! 4 under 4!!! having done the stressful waiting game with the skylar and arianna, i wish beth a nice, happy, flawless, perfect pregnancy. because it'll definitely be the end of your peace and quiet once the dubloons arrive.
promised promo shoutout to the mayor mccheese, if only b/c i think i'm 2 months away from seeing his silliness back on the st.croix. now if there was only something that would keep me busy until then...
Sunday, October 08, 2006
searching for more meaning on a tuesday
dearest all-
to everything, there is routine. no matter how basic the idea, or experienced the individual, a routine helps keep focus, momentum, and drive to some goal, whether it's waking up and going through "your morning ritual" or stepping out of the batter's box and nomar going through his complex tightening and retightening of his batting gloves. here, in quickdrivethru format, is my current routine:
wake up. late. ignore coffee at home since i can make it at school. remember bike lock for bike. usually. get out the door. ride to school, staying clear of the big pothole on nagle and the even bigger storm water bypass at the catholic church (its not fun to hit dead on). wait at crosswalk. ride across university onto campus. begin count of "people with cell phones engaged." make estimate of total numbers of students i pass on way to office / class (if i'm really late). we're averaging, by the way, about 1 per 15. with 50,000 students here (more or less), that's 3333 students on their cell phone at ALL times of the day. well, at least between class times. avoid pack of sorority girls and wind through the library walkways. try to not get in collision with students leaving library. turn right onto spence dr. make hard left back onto walkways, making sure to time my spot so i don't run over freshmen and cadets. which is difficult (see my paen on slalom biking through students). park bike away from the crowded spots near the door, go upstairs to office, make coffee, read email, and respond to the students in my lab who are having difficulties. we're averaging, by the way, about 65% extra help response for the latest lab. which is impressive in that the lab books are hideously written oftentimes, and that i don't think i ever went for extra help. ever. spend day engaged in academic pursuits like taking out all the fish behaviour books from the library (apparently, all fish behaviorists are british, or like to spell with the extra u), or updating the website: http://geog.tamu.edu/marinegeog , or reading the news and trying to figure out the density of the average american adult brain should certain political figures in congress win re-election. make pbj when hungry. go to class/lab as needed. end day around 7pm or 8 sometimes. bring something home that's nice and easy to do while watching tv (daily show, colbert report, countdown with keith olbermann, southpark reruns, sportscenter). get to sleep sometime around midnight. rinse and repeat.
why am i boring you with this? well, we had the apocalypse on tuesday. seriously. right around 5:30pm, some monumental power failure hit the campus and surrounding burg. with computer in tow and not much else, i head home. this would be where i would practice hitting acorns and making them skitter across the sidewalk with my front tire. but instead, it was a mass of humanity. all the students were outside, milling about as they tend to do. the campus roads were totally backed up and there were lots of angry looks as i skirted by them on my way home. off campus was much worse. being rush hour and everything, the main drag, university drive, was total gridlock without street lights. people were trying to cut through parking lots to get around to side streets, but so many people were doing this that even here was a mess. the taco stand (called fatburger) apparently had a generator because roughly 250 students were waiting in line for food. it was amazing to see it all. and it reminded me of that great protest sign me and my brother once saw near a nuclear power plant. "i don't need your electricity. i get mine from the wall!" the behind-the-scenes string that ties our routines together, electricity, was, when noticeably absent, seemingly also the glue that keeps people sane. i couldn't imagine what life would be like without electricity. i would, for all practical purposes, be a bit put off by it after a while.
which is really amazing. and so i got to thinking about thoreau and simplicity and deep, important, human things that aren't reliant on 110v coming out your wall, and how it'd be a nice evening for stargazing and hanging on the stoop. and then i got home and somehow my block wasn't affected.
so i went inside, sat down, turned my computer back on, got olbermann at the right soft volume, and settled back into the routine.
moral: it's hard to break routines and habits. we know that. and here's why: we like our habits and routines. given the choice of a nice, unusual night of stargazing inside city limits and hanging out with friends or the glow of a computer screen, a research proposal, and south park, i did indeed choose the latter. not that i'm proud of that.
of course, i did finish and end up outside playing guitar and talking about marxist geographers with eugene. yeah, that's what i said too. and in the excitement and newness of it all, even if my enjoyment was delayed, made for one of the best nights so far.
especially when i woke up the next morning and went to class again, only to realize, once there, that i had forgotten to proctor an exam at 8am.
--goose
quick brief recap shout-outs:
off-the-fiveball-side-pocket shoutout to roommate, fellow trojan and graduate studentee eugene f. for accepting his mentoring role as i finally take on the important challenge of learning to play pool properly. we have 4-6 years, depending on your worldview, and that's lots of thursday nights committed to following through the cue. most important discovery: you don't have to hit the cue in the dead center! apparently, that was my biggest problem (well, that and not following through). and though my record against euge in 8-ball is like 0-58, we're getting better. we ignore the two games he scratched the 8ball, obtw. and i have beaten him fairly in 9-ball twice. and this is a guy who describes his college days as "long stays at the pub playing pool and snooker."
happy shoutout to skype! do you skype? i do (apparently). it's loads of fun seeing the good dr. and clan in far off guam and having little skylar react violently to my goattee and long hair. note: the goat is gone and the dreams about short hair have begun. thank you skylar. oh, if you do skype: i can be reached by searching for my full name. should be easy as peezy, yo! skype it up!
happy housewarming-can-we-take-your-leftovers to faculty member kathleen, who had a nice housewarming yesterday. and some aluminum foil for me and euge to (politely, mind you) procure some leftovers. and by leftovers, we mean: 1/3 of a pecan pie, 1/7 of an apple crumb strudel, 20-30 celery/carrot sticks, 3 handfuls of broccoli, 15ish hot dogs, 1 tub macaroni salad (sans mayonaisse!), 1 tub potato sald (mit gelflugelmayonnaise, boo!), and some baked beans.
happy can-you-believe-college-football relief to the usc trojans! two squeaky wins but no.2 auburn loses to arkansas, who the trojans ate up. but the local alumni affiliate here in college station would appreciate a little more offense. no offense.
happy sunday and for those of you who get the columbus day off, i say: &%$^@!
to everything, there is routine. no matter how basic the idea, or experienced the individual, a routine helps keep focus, momentum, and drive to some goal, whether it's waking up and going through "your morning ritual" or stepping out of the batter's box and nomar going through his complex tightening and retightening of his batting gloves. here, in quickdrivethru format, is my current routine:
wake up. late. ignore coffee at home since i can make it at school. remember bike lock for bike. usually. get out the door. ride to school, staying clear of the big pothole on nagle and the even bigger storm water bypass at the catholic church (its not fun to hit dead on). wait at crosswalk. ride across university onto campus. begin count of "people with cell phones engaged." make estimate of total numbers of students i pass on way to office / class (if i'm really late). we're averaging, by the way, about 1 per 15. with 50,000 students here (more or less), that's 3333 students on their cell phone at ALL times of the day. well, at least between class times. avoid pack of sorority girls and wind through the library walkways. try to not get in collision with students leaving library. turn right onto spence dr. make hard left back onto walkways, making sure to time my spot so i don't run over freshmen and cadets. which is difficult (see my paen on slalom biking through students). park bike away from the crowded spots near the door, go upstairs to office, make coffee, read email, and respond to the students in my lab who are having difficulties. we're averaging, by the way, about 65% extra help response for the latest lab. which is impressive in that the lab books are hideously written oftentimes, and that i don't think i ever went for extra help. ever. spend day engaged in academic pursuits like taking out all the fish behaviour books from the library (apparently, all fish behaviorists are british, or like to spell with the extra u), or updating the website: http://geog.tamu.edu/marinegeog , or reading the news and trying to figure out the density of the average american adult brain should certain political figures in congress win re-election. make pbj when hungry. go to class/lab as needed. end day around 7pm or 8 sometimes. bring something home that's nice and easy to do while watching tv (daily show, colbert report, countdown with keith olbermann, southpark reruns, sportscenter). get to sleep sometime around midnight. rinse and repeat.
why am i boring you with this? well, we had the apocalypse on tuesday. seriously. right around 5:30pm, some monumental power failure hit the campus and surrounding burg. with computer in tow and not much else, i head home. this would be where i would practice hitting acorns and making them skitter across the sidewalk with my front tire. but instead, it was a mass of humanity. all the students were outside, milling about as they tend to do. the campus roads were totally backed up and there were lots of angry looks as i skirted by them on my way home. off campus was much worse. being rush hour and everything, the main drag, university drive, was total gridlock without street lights. people were trying to cut through parking lots to get around to side streets, but so many people were doing this that even here was a mess. the taco stand (called fatburger) apparently had a generator because roughly 250 students were waiting in line for food. it was amazing to see it all. and it reminded me of that great protest sign me and my brother once saw near a nuclear power plant. "i don't need your electricity. i get mine from the wall!" the behind-the-scenes string that ties our routines together, electricity, was, when noticeably absent, seemingly also the glue that keeps people sane. i couldn't imagine what life would be like without electricity. i would, for all practical purposes, be a bit put off by it after a while.
which is really amazing. and so i got to thinking about thoreau and simplicity and deep, important, human things that aren't reliant on 110v coming out your wall, and how it'd be a nice evening for stargazing and hanging on the stoop. and then i got home and somehow my block wasn't affected.
so i went inside, sat down, turned my computer back on, got olbermann at the right soft volume, and settled back into the routine.
moral: it's hard to break routines and habits. we know that. and here's why: we like our habits and routines. given the choice of a nice, unusual night of stargazing inside city limits and hanging out with friends or the glow of a computer screen, a research proposal, and south park, i did indeed choose the latter. not that i'm proud of that.
of course, i did finish and end up outside playing guitar and talking about marxist geographers with eugene. yeah, that's what i said too. and in the excitement and newness of it all, even if my enjoyment was delayed, made for one of the best nights so far.
especially when i woke up the next morning and went to class again, only to realize, once there, that i had forgotten to proctor an exam at 8am.
--goose
quick brief recap shout-outs:
off-the-fiveball-side-pocket shoutout to roommate, fellow trojan and graduate studentee eugene f. for accepting his mentoring role as i finally take on the important challenge of learning to play pool properly. we have 4-6 years, depending on your worldview, and that's lots of thursday nights committed to following through the cue. most important discovery: you don't have to hit the cue in the dead center! apparently, that was my biggest problem (well, that and not following through). and though my record against euge in 8-ball is like 0-58, we're getting better. we ignore the two games he scratched the 8ball, obtw. and i have beaten him fairly in 9-ball twice. and this is a guy who describes his college days as "long stays at the pub playing pool and snooker."
happy shoutout to skype! do you skype? i do (apparently). it's loads of fun seeing the good dr. and clan in far off guam and having little skylar react violently to my goattee and long hair. note: the goat is gone and the dreams about short hair have begun. thank you skylar. oh, if you do skype: i can be reached by searching for my full name. should be easy as peezy, yo! skype it up!
happy housewarming-can-we-take-your-leftovers to faculty member kathleen, who had a nice housewarming yesterday. and some aluminum foil for me and euge to (politely, mind you) procure some leftovers. and by leftovers, we mean: 1/3 of a pecan pie, 1/7 of an apple crumb strudel, 20-30 celery/carrot sticks, 3 handfuls of broccoli, 15ish hot dogs, 1 tub macaroni salad (sans mayonaisse!), 1 tub potato sald (mit gelflugelmayonnaise, boo!), and some baked beans.
happy can-you-believe-college-football relief to the usc trojans! two squeaky wins but no.2 auburn loses to arkansas, who the trojans ate up. but the local alumni affiliate here in college station would appreciate a little more offense. no offense.
happy sunday and for those of you who get the columbus day off, i say: &%$^@!
Friday, September 29, 2006
cuz it's Friday, you ain't got no job, and you ain't got...
No SHOUT-OUTS!
(with apologies to the classic movie "friday")
Super Happy "Where You Been?!!" Shout-out to the ever lovely Stacy H. of Washington, DC. the good friend from freshman year is still co'chillin' in the foreign service gig and thanks to super-frosh friend Nara W. of Los Angeles, CA, got her back in touch. couldn't be more thrilled. especially b/c i haven't had a good giggle from thinking about the PhiPsi formal where she was totally determined to snag my big brother (and frat president). who was gay. though maybe not out at the time. anyhow, they're both super excellent people in that story and as he was nominated for a Tony (how could Stacy not know?!!!) and she's still mingling with Mancunians, i'd say we all turned out allright.
Big Ups to My Ipod. No, really. I've been listening to Pandora.com for quite a while now (try it and you'll see the OCD come through) but nothing can compare to what was, until i switched over to Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, nearly 37 uninteruppted hours of Beatles. I had forgotten the love.
Special Peace and Love out to Jason V. of Los Angeles, CA. Senior roommate and someone who I can always remember from any Trojan Knight Party, gave me the shout-out to invite me to a little party he's having tonight. Too bad I'm not near Bridgeport, CT. But if you are, and wouldn't mind seeing him film some segments for Girls Gone Wild, let me know and i'll hook you up. Seriously. Though I didn't have it in my heart to tell him that the girls of Bridgeport might not make it off the cutting room floor. No, seriously.
DOUBLE-DOUBLE PROUD UPS! to my boy the good Dr. Carr of Guam and clan. passing the boards in st.louis was just the start of it! the girls are looking grander by the day and it seems the island life is passing muster. which i knew.
HAPPY PEACE OUT TO THE LOCAL JUSTICES OF THE PEACE! today i was supposed to do jury duty in connecticut. but in fortunates of fortunates, my notice arrived on the same day as my excused note. NICE!
happy weekend! beat the cougars! --goose
(with apologies to the classic movie "friday")
Super Happy "Where You Been?!!" Shout-out to the ever lovely Stacy H. of Washington, DC. the good friend from freshman year is still co'chillin' in the foreign service gig and thanks to super-frosh friend Nara W. of Los Angeles, CA, got her back in touch. couldn't be more thrilled. especially b/c i haven't had a good giggle from thinking about the PhiPsi formal where she was totally determined to snag my big brother (and frat president). who was gay. though maybe not out at the time. anyhow, they're both super excellent people in that story and as he was nominated for a Tony (how could Stacy not know?!!!) and she's still mingling with Mancunians, i'd say we all turned out allright.
Big Ups to My Ipod. No, really. I've been listening to Pandora.com for quite a while now (try it and you'll see the OCD come through) but nothing can compare to what was, until i switched over to Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, nearly 37 uninteruppted hours of Beatles. I had forgotten the love.
Special Peace and Love out to Jason V. of Los Angeles, CA. Senior roommate and someone who I can always remember from any Trojan Knight Party, gave me the shout-out to invite me to a little party he's having tonight. Too bad I'm not near Bridgeport, CT. But if you are, and wouldn't mind seeing him film some segments for Girls Gone Wild, let me know and i'll hook you up. Seriously. Though I didn't have it in my heart to tell him that the girls of Bridgeport might not make it off the cutting room floor. No, seriously.
DOUBLE-DOUBLE PROUD UPS! to my boy the good Dr. Carr of Guam and clan. passing the boards in st.louis was just the start of it! the girls are looking grander by the day and it seems the island life is passing muster. which i knew.
HAPPY PEACE OUT TO THE LOCAL JUSTICES OF THE PEACE! today i was supposed to do jury duty in connecticut. but in fortunates of fortunates, my notice arrived on the same day as my excused note. NICE!
happy weekend! beat the cougars! --goose
numerology, OCD, and the need for a second wal-mart
dearest all-
like the final box needing unpacking or the last book needing shelving, i can (almost) declare that i have moved in to my graduate life in toto. those dark early days in late august where i slept on a futon matress on the floor and had no place for anything except the pockets of floorspace around said futon are long gone. the unpacking should be done this weekend (i still have a box of books and my piano to get in place) amid the shouts and murmurs of the usc game, two big GIS projects, and one HUGE methodological paper that i have promised will be ready monday. and in the even greater scheme of displaying my permanence to college station, i've gone and gotten texas plates for my car, claus.
a quick backstory: my car is claus. he is a 2003 ocean blue bmw 325xi with nice leather interior and has been the sundance kid to my butch cassidy for my 2 big cross-country jaunts in 2003 and 2004. he is claus (rhymes with house) because he purrs like the little kitten claus i semi-adopted when i lived in the turks and caicos islands who would sleep on my chest every so often. here in the land of american-made and big trucks (and i mean BIG as in: the djork's truck is so big that it hangs over every boundary of their parking space; both lines and out into traffic - which of course leads to the corrolary known by several of my peers as "The Mickey Mouse Corollary". it might actually be more of a scientifically-tested Theory (as opposed to how nutjob "scientific creationists" belittle Darwin by using the other, less concrete definition of theory to try and push their child's education back into the 18th century) or it might even be a Law. But we call it a Corollary, mainly because a Corollary is defined to be "a natural consequence, or result." we dont' know if the large truck is the impetus of the MMC or if something in the owner's physiology predisposes them to purchase outlandishly large vehicles. we do know that the MMC is as true as the premise that you'll only spill red wine on fancy white clothes. and, before i pull back to the story as writ, i'd like to point out to the nay-noobers out there that claus was only discovered from a newspaper profile and i discovered the sticker price of a claus was the same (actually a tad less) than the two other cars i was considering - a chevy impala (yo yo yo! y'allz!) and a subaru wrx. yep, that's right. i almost bought an impala. and given that in the two years i drove claus exclusively, i managed to pile on 41,000 miles, i think that i have demostrated the appropriateness of the vehicle with the owner...
anyhow, not much of a quick backstory, but i got in a tad deeper than i thought i would. it's friday. what can you do? so... today i was determined to get claus registered as a bonafide vehicle in the state of texas. this requires 2 things: getting an emissions testing, and turning over your connecticut registration for a texas one. the third item (drivers' license) was ultimately a monumental failure, and i won't bore you with the details save the delicious note that i couldn't get a texas license because i had no proof of my social security number. my dog, rowan, ate the card way back in like january of 2005. seriously. was my passport a viable alternative? nope. how about my student id? nope. how about my virgin islands' health card (for bartending) that actually has my SSN on it? nope. stupid republicans are disenfranchising the masses, i swear.
so at 8am, i headed over to school to print out my texas insurance cards. return trip home was about an hour. i call the emissions people and, using maps.com or maybe the ridiculously bad excite.maps page (and you know this people!) i wrote out directions. which were wrong. long story short: it took 1.5 hours and 48 miles to get to the emissions test. to diagram a tale of lostness that really can't be described with the local landmarks (since noone knows them), instead, here's a mental image. draw a rectangle. we'll call each side by compass names: north, east, south, west. place a star on the northwest corner (the emissions testing center). place a circle midway up the east side. that's home. how does one get there quickly? well, that should be obvious.
here's what i did. drove down the east line towards the southeast nexus. made another square below square 1 (you may want to number your squares), and drove down that east line too. at that southeast corner, turn and drive along the south line towards the west line of square 2. turn up and drive the west line ALMOST all the way to where the west line of square 2 meets the southwest corner of square 1. turn around after calling the guy and he says his place is near the walmart (let's place a W on square 3 somewhere near the northeast corner, which lies adjacent and in line with the eastern edge of square 2.) drive back West-2 and turn left and drive along the South-2 towards East-2 (where square 2 meets Square 3). continue driving along South into square 3. get to the W where the walmart is represented. you should now be in square 3 at the northeast corner. look for a Napa Auto Parts while driving on North-3 towards W3/E2. don't find a Napa. Give up. Head back to home. Now draw a Square 4, which lies above and to the right of the northeast corner of square 1 (think of how squares line up along diagonals if you're a bishop in chess). pretend there's a short-cut through that empty space between Sq1 and Sq4. drive through it. You're now on the south line of Sq4. drive towards East4. Realize that you're in the wrong direction. Turn around at GREAT PERIL since texas likes highways that aren't really highways, but have streetlights and stuff and merging lanes that disappear and suddenly on-coming traffic lanes when you take an exit ramp. how i was in the wrong lane of traffic, i'll never figure out. it was amazing. take exit. go up offramp. come to stop at light. while waiting to turn left (and go over neo-highway and get back on and head the other direction), discover a trucker is honking at you to get back on the right side of the road...
anyhow, accident avoided, get back on Sq4 and head towards W4 along S4. When you get there, realize that you're RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU STARTED (well, like 3 blocks from home). Draw Square 5, which sits ontop of Sq.1 and to the west of Sq.4. You'll now notice that, if you continue driving west along Sq5, that the SW corner of Sq5 just happens to match the little star in the NW corner of Sq.1.
congratulations! you've made it. now pay the man $13.50 for the test that took 1 minute. and notice on your way out that there's a second wal-mart in town.
the rest of the day was pretty unspectacular. apart from the wrong turn after i got my car registered that took me through Da'Hood and by the local penitentary (sorry, claus!), i'm now a texas driver. which brings me to the point:
my license plate sucks. MLPSUX.
i can't be any more clear in this: texas plate 436-PFF needs to go. and that is where you come in.
there's an ability to "post comment" on my ramblings. i'm looking for voters.
now, i've done this in the past, specifically when i first got claus, but now i need to do it. i can't drive around with a car that reads "puff" or "piff". how can i establish MMC on other drivers? i have no authority in 436-PFF.
for those who know my inner workings in slightly more detail than i'd like to divulge, you know my nearly OCD with numbers. i'm the boy that counted the 1840 steps from my house to fred's shanty. i'm the one who would only walk on gray tiles at school on test days. i don't step on cracks but know that, when i'm late for class (this was at USC) that it was exactly 4 steps on each concrete slab down trousdale, and then 4 alternating with 3 when i got close to mudd chemistry building. my phone numbers are memorized in the most bizzare manner ever (take, for example, my brother's: the year before dad graduated highschool-how many more years it took to graduate - the class of submarine that the hg rickover is - the year shamus graduated highschool, the year before my dad's graduation again. and my ct license plate was similarly understood by this framework: 757-RXU. a 757 is a big plane that goes fast. RX is medicine. U is You. so claus could be read as "going far and fast is good for you." 436-PFF is???
so here are the potentials for a plate. the winning plate will be chosen (at only $30!!!) and will replace the hideousness that is 436-PFF. its a 6-letter max her ein texass. explanations follow:
PLOTOR - "P. lotor"- the original and still a fave. it's the genus/species of my favorite animal: the raccoon.
LUTJNS - "Lutjanus" - the genus for snapper fish, supposedly something i'm studying. hard to get the "janus" sound though, and definitely can't have ANUS anywhere...
SRRNID - "Serranid" - the family name for groupers.
GO2USC - "Go To USC" - clear enough.
USC4ME - "USC For Me" - clear enough.
SCYALE - "SC - Yale" - if it was 7 letters, it'd be SC2Yale, but there you go. disenfranchisement, man. disenfranchisement.
CRUXAN - "Crucian" - from St. Croix. like it, but cops might not? or people'd go "CRUX?" i never said texans were smart.
STX4ME - "St.Croix for me". doubt anyone beyond T3 and other pilots would get the airport code. and as it turns out, i don't want people thinking i like sticks. or their equivalents.
CLAUS - "Claus". like it, but would people pronounce it "clause"? poor poor claus.
ROWAN - "Rowan". like it, but my dog is already named. and my car is named after a cat...
DEALER'SCHOICE - "you make one up". i think that those are best.
ok: it's friday night, nearly 8pm here, we get paid in a few days, so HURRAY! HURRAY FOR BEER!
--goose
Bonus Thought: the best i got for 436-PFF is that a size 36 is 4 sizes bigger than i would ever want to be (though the 33 is okay since it seems to be holding steady these days), and that, should i gain 4 size to a 36, i'd make a nice PFF noise when i sat.
like the final box needing unpacking or the last book needing shelving, i can (almost) declare that i have moved in to my graduate life in toto. those dark early days in late august where i slept on a futon matress on the floor and had no place for anything except the pockets of floorspace around said futon are long gone. the unpacking should be done this weekend (i still have a box of books and my piano to get in place) amid the shouts and murmurs of the usc game, two big GIS projects, and one HUGE methodological paper that i have promised will be ready monday. and in the even greater scheme of displaying my permanence to college station, i've gone and gotten texas plates for my car, claus.
a quick backstory: my car is claus. he is a 2003 ocean blue bmw 325xi with nice leather interior and has been the sundance kid to my butch cassidy for my 2 big cross-country jaunts in 2003 and 2004. he is claus (rhymes with house) because he purrs like the little kitten claus i semi-adopted when i lived in the turks and caicos islands who would sleep on my chest every so often. here in the land of american-made and big trucks (and i mean BIG as in: the djork's truck is so big that it hangs over every boundary of their parking space; both lines and out into traffic - which of course leads to the corrolary known by several of my peers as "The Mickey Mouse Corollary". it might actually be more of a scientifically-tested Theory (as opposed to how nutjob "scientific creationists" belittle Darwin by using the other, less concrete definition of theory to try and push their child's education back into the 18th century) or it might even be a Law. But we call it a Corollary, mainly because a Corollary is defined to be "a natural consequence, or result." we dont' know if the large truck is the impetus of the MMC or if something in the owner's physiology predisposes them to purchase outlandishly large vehicles. we do know that the MMC is as true as the premise that you'll only spill red wine on fancy white clothes. and, before i pull back to the story as writ, i'd like to point out to the nay-noobers out there that claus was only discovered from a newspaper profile and i discovered the sticker price of a claus was the same (actually a tad less) than the two other cars i was considering - a chevy impala (yo yo yo! y'allz!) and a subaru wrx. yep, that's right. i almost bought an impala. and given that in the two years i drove claus exclusively, i managed to pile on 41,000 miles, i think that i have demostrated the appropriateness of the vehicle with the owner...
anyhow, not much of a quick backstory, but i got in a tad deeper than i thought i would. it's friday. what can you do? so... today i was determined to get claus registered as a bonafide vehicle in the state of texas. this requires 2 things: getting an emissions testing, and turning over your connecticut registration for a texas one. the third item (drivers' license) was ultimately a monumental failure, and i won't bore you with the details save the delicious note that i couldn't get a texas license because i had no proof of my social security number. my dog, rowan, ate the card way back in like january of 2005. seriously. was my passport a viable alternative? nope. how about my student id? nope. how about my virgin islands' health card (for bartending) that actually has my SSN on it? nope. stupid republicans are disenfranchising the masses, i swear.
so at 8am, i headed over to school to print out my texas insurance cards. return trip home was about an hour. i call the emissions people and, using maps.com or maybe the ridiculously bad excite.maps page (and you know this people!) i wrote out directions. which were wrong. long story short: it took 1.5 hours and 48 miles to get to the emissions test. to diagram a tale of lostness that really can't be described with the local landmarks (since noone knows them), instead, here's a mental image. draw a rectangle. we'll call each side by compass names: north, east, south, west. place a star on the northwest corner (the emissions testing center). place a circle midway up the east side. that's home. how does one get there quickly? well, that should be obvious.
here's what i did. drove down the east line towards the southeast nexus. made another square below square 1 (you may want to number your squares), and drove down that east line too. at that southeast corner, turn and drive along the south line towards the west line of square 2. turn up and drive the west line ALMOST all the way to where the west line of square 2 meets the southwest corner of square 1. turn around after calling the guy and he says his place is near the walmart (let's place a W on square 3 somewhere near the northeast corner, which lies adjacent and in line with the eastern edge of square 2.) drive back West-2 and turn left and drive along the South-2 towards East-2 (where square 2 meets Square 3). continue driving along South into square 3. get to the W where the walmart is represented. you should now be in square 3 at the northeast corner. look for a Napa Auto Parts while driving on North-3 towards W3/E2. don't find a Napa. Give up. Head back to home. Now draw a Square 4, which lies above and to the right of the northeast corner of square 1 (think of how squares line up along diagonals if you're a bishop in chess). pretend there's a short-cut through that empty space between Sq1 and Sq4. drive through it. You're now on the south line of Sq4. drive towards East4. Realize that you're in the wrong direction. Turn around at GREAT PERIL since texas likes highways that aren't really highways, but have streetlights and stuff and merging lanes that disappear and suddenly on-coming traffic lanes when you take an exit ramp. how i was in the wrong lane of traffic, i'll never figure out. it was amazing. take exit. go up offramp. come to stop at light. while waiting to turn left (and go over neo-highway and get back on and head the other direction), discover a trucker is honking at you to get back on the right side of the road...
anyhow, accident avoided, get back on Sq4 and head towards W4 along S4. When you get there, realize that you're RIGHT BACK WHERE YOU STARTED (well, like 3 blocks from home). Draw Square 5, which sits ontop of Sq.1 and to the west of Sq.4. You'll now notice that, if you continue driving west along Sq5, that the SW corner of Sq5 just happens to match the little star in the NW corner of Sq.1.
congratulations! you've made it. now pay the man $13.50 for the test that took 1 minute. and notice on your way out that there's a second wal-mart in town.
the rest of the day was pretty unspectacular. apart from the wrong turn after i got my car registered that took me through Da'Hood and by the local penitentary (sorry, claus!), i'm now a texas driver. which brings me to the point:
my license plate sucks. MLPSUX.
i can't be any more clear in this: texas plate 436-PFF needs to go. and that is where you come in.
there's an ability to "post comment" on my ramblings. i'm looking for voters.
now, i've done this in the past, specifically when i first got claus, but now i need to do it. i can't drive around with a car that reads "puff" or "piff". how can i establish MMC on other drivers? i have no authority in 436-PFF.
for those who know my inner workings in slightly more detail than i'd like to divulge, you know my nearly OCD with numbers. i'm the boy that counted the 1840 steps from my house to fred's shanty. i'm the one who would only walk on gray tiles at school on test days. i don't step on cracks but know that, when i'm late for class (this was at USC) that it was exactly 4 steps on each concrete slab down trousdale, and then 4 alternating with 3 when i got close to mudd chemistry building. my phone numbers are memorized in the most bizzare manner ever (take, for example, my brother's: the year before dad graduated highschool-how many more years it took to graduate - the class of submarine that the hg rickover is - the year shamus graduated highschool, the year before my dad's graduation again. and my ct license plate was similarly understood by this framework: 757-RXU. a 757 is a big plane that goes fast. RX is medicine. U is You. so claus could be read as "going far and fast is good for you." 436-PFF is???
so here are the potentials for a plate. the winning plate will be chosen (at only $30!!!) and will replace the hideousness that is 436-PFF. its a 6-letter max her ein texass. explanations follow:
PLOTOR - "P. lotor"- the original and still a fave. it's the genus/species of my favorite animal: the raccoon.
LUTJNS - "Lutjanus" - the genus for snapper fish, supposedly something i'm studying. hard to get the "janus" sound though, and definitely can't have ANUS anywhere...
SRRNID - "Serranid" - the family name for groupers.
GO2USC - "Go To USC" - clear enough.
USC4ME - "USC For Me" - clear enough.
SCYALE - "SC - Yale" - if it was 7 letters, it'd be SC2Yale, but there you go. disenfranchisement, man. disenfranchisement.
CRUXAN - "Crucian" - from St. Croix. like it, but cops might not? or people'd go "CRUX?" i never said texans were smart.
STX4ME - "St.Croix for me". doubt anyone beyond T3 and other pilots would get the airport code. and as it turns out, i don't want people thinking i like sticks. or their equivalents.
CLAUS - "Claus". like it, but would people pronounce it "clause"? poor poor claus.
ROWAN - "Rowan". like it, but my dog is already named. and my car is named after a cat...
DEALER'SCHOICE - "you make one up". i think that those are best.
ok: it's friday night, nearly 8pm here, we get paid in a few days, so HURRAY! HURRAY FOR BEER!
--goose
Bonus Thought: the best i got for 436-PFF is that a size 36 is 4 sizes bigger than i would ever want to be (though the 33 is okay since it seems to be holding steady these days), and that, should i gain 4 size to a 36, i'd make a nice PFF noise when i sat.
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