The tow yard

I visited my poor car in the lot today. I felt like I was visiting a sick patient or something. And I have to say I felt much better about my wreck after seeing the completely thrashed cars that were there. Most of them had something fly through the front window, a crumpled hood and at least one flat tire.

The lot manager and the tow trucker driver gave me pause though. Sure I watch way too many movies but these guys were walking stereotypes. The lot manager was a morbidly obese man who found it difficult to pull his ass away from his chair, so he used an intercom to talk to a guy who was just outside his window. A shiny balding head with a few strands still desperately clinging to his spotted scalp, topped the most spherical body I have ever seen. He also never stopped eating, and I had a feeling that if the food supply ever ran too low the cat asleep on his phone would make a quick substitute. He buzzed me into the tow yard, as I stepped in a wire fence wheeled shut behind me. The tow truck driver from Tuesday met me and I must have been a little dazed then because I didn't realize just how creepy he was. Under what was probably one a blue company ball hat, dark greasy hair hung to his chin. And he never seemed to stand up all the way. He was incredibly helpful but still I just wanted to get out.

I grabbed the few things left in my car and headed back out. I didn't look back, I felt like a traitor abandoning a good friend.

But then I remembered it was just a car and got over it.

Damn concrete and its non-bounciness!

Today was supposed to be great, last day of finals, no work. I could go home and stuff my face and veg out on the couch. But no, that's not how my day ended up.

After finals I headed home and of course it started raining. Driving down I-280 I decided it would be a great idea to take on the center divider. Sadly I lost, but I want a rematch.

OK what really happened was I hit a wet spot, my car spun out, hit the center divider (twice), airbags deployed, and I ended up perpendicular to oncoming traffic. To top it all off I received a fat lip and a few bag burns on my face, and I'm pretty sure I'll be very sore tomorrow. And I forgot my phone so I had to wait for a good samaritan to stop and call CHP.

When CHP got there they closed down all four lanes and had to push my car to the side. It was so sad as pieces of my poor little car were left behind. The tow truck driver doesn't think it's unslavagable but the insurance guy said it was a good possibility. I'd prefer to fix the car as I'm very attached to it, I actually felt bad as I watched it ride away to the tow yard. I swear it looked forlorn.

And then I spent the next hour on Caltrain to get home. And I definitely wont have a car for about two weeks.

SHUT UP!!

Listen I know you are passionate about subject x, but some of us have to be here, some mean person made it mandatory. Please keep your boring ass subject to the maximum 15 minute time limit, or I will rip your head off. Can you not see us sleeping? I'm in the fourth row back, can you see me now? I'm the one doing the sleeping head bob next to the girl that is drooling on herself, who is right behind the guy that is loudly snoring. I know you spent months on this but wrap-it-up, no one cares. The girl before you was nice enough to keep it down to 10 minutes and I almost ran up and kissed her. I don't even know your name and I actively seek your death. SHUT UP!!

Oops

So I love the library. I've always loved the library. When I was little I would go there for hours sit on the floor and stare at musty pages through my over sized glasses. So after so many happy (but yet nerdily sad) hours how can I be so cruel to the institution that was once so kind to me? Yep that's right I, a lover of the library, became part of it's most wanted list.

I somehow managed to rack up $102.50 in library bills.

It started to innocently too. I checked out The Affects of Oral (he he) Satire, for a class, and I read a good five pages out of about 250. So far so good. But then summer comes around and I head out of town and then I moved and completely forgot about this stupid little book. Now it's been six months and a few irate emails from the library and I finally return the book (it took some serious searching but good news I found a pair of shoes that I thought were completely gone). Now every time I head to the library I feel like I have a huge sign on me that reads BOOK THIEF, I swear the librarian glare at me as I walk by.

But my question is do I still owe $102.50? I mean the book wasn't that great.

Flying

I'm not a fan of flying. Don't like going to the airport, I hate taking off and landing is just evil. A huge tin can should not be soaring through the air. But a couple of times a year I suck it up and get on one of those flying death traps and start praying like I haven't for months. This year I'm headed to San Diego for Thanksgiving and so I'm lucky enough to travel on the busiest day of the year.

Flying into San Diego always gives me pause. You'd think in a place with almost perpetual sunshine the airline employees would be a tad bit happier. But last time I was there I got chosen for a random bag check. Which is fine but as I stood at the table, as the security lady rifled through my bag, I noticed a shelf above her head. On this random shelf were two items, a box of latex gloves and the biggest jug of Vaseline I've ever seen.

After seeing that I answered every question with a "yes ma'am," "no ma'am." And it seemed to have worked as I wasn't violated in the name of national security. But ever since then the San Diego airport has always given me the heebie geebies.

Published

It's official, I've finally been paid for writing. Sure it wont cover even one car payment but that is not the point. The editors didn't change that much but they did add a reference from wikipedia that I'm a little peeved about, if they asked I could have found a reputable source.

But I'm still pretty excited. So yeah!!

Where am I?

I live in lovely Menlo Park which I have decided is the scariest place on earth. It's so Stepford here. Apparently khaki is the uniform and every house comes with two loud children and the Eddie Bauer off-road baby stroller. I walk around downtown and expect passersby to break into choreographed song and dance numbers at any minute.

Every morning I leave around 9:30am and as I pass the local coffee shop (which of course is located right next to the world's most saccharinely sweet park that has live music for the whole family on Wednesday nights during the summer) and I notice families carrying their mocha chinos, pushing their designer baby strollers with a cute little dog running around their ankles. This wouldn't be so odd but it's a week day, who the crap is working in these families? The coffee shop is full of these happy, gap clad yuppies that are doing nothing (OK at this point one might point out my lack of a real job and the fact that I'm starting my day out at 9:30). Although I readily admit I'm probably just jealous.

Of course when I do walk around I'm pretty sure that I have "outsider" stamped on my forehead. I think maybe my unbrushed hair and clothes from yesterday and are a dead give. I went to go get bagels one Sunday morning at an early 11am, and two old people actually glared at me as I walked into the bagel cafe.

I must admit this place does not feel like home. But I like the apartment so I'll learn to live with the weirdos in the neighborhood. And the naked neighbor who's girlfriend is always yelling at him is at least entertaining.

Yummy

So the last few days I have had some weird cravings (no I'm not). Usually I crave bacon western cheese burgers, caramellos or soft serve ice creams, it changes from week to week. This week I've been craving avocados and cheddar cheese. I think it's because of the SoCal fires destroying large quantities of this year's crop, and me wondering if there will be any guacamole come Superbowl.

Sure A looked at me a little weird when I walked in with some avocados and a big block of cheese. But it was soo tasty, and I feel all good because I've had two servings of fruits and vegetables today. I am so healthy.

Musings of a grammatical idiot

In a class of about 30 students a good 80% of them have their laptops open. Of the screens that I can see all of two students actually have the assignment that the teacher is talking about up (I fall into the larger category). Most of the students are online but there are a few that are typing away in Word. The girl in front of me is checking out sales at target, the girl next to her is checking her SJSU account while the guy next to her is messing with his photographs. Why don’t we care about our education?

As I’ve returned to school after a protracted break I usually am a much better student. I try to pay attention and do my homework. But I must admit that this class is pretty boring and my friend I sit next to isn't here today, and he usually unconsciously guilts me into paying attention because he is, so my mind is wandering. It’s an editing class (which I truly need help in) and the 1000-year-old professor is trying teach us Indesign with mixed results. I think most of the students have at least messed around in the program before or they just really don’t care. Either way nobody is paying any attention to the old professor.

I think the best and worst part of the class is that it is co-taught by two professors that don’t always (never) agree on things. It’s both great and frustrating because they bicker in class about what the different editing rules are or how the A.P. guide says something. It’s funny, but on the downside I don’t know if I’m learning that much.

Guess I should have paid more attention in class as all I did was copy edit at my internship, because the copy editor is out of town and they have no one else. Oh well at least I got to read the paper two days before everyone else.

Impressively dumb

Some turn to a life of crime because they know no other way, others to try and make a fast buck. But apparently some are just to dumb to do anything else, take for instance the Mensa candidates that walked into the San Bruno Police Department this morning.

First off the two guys and a girl walk in and try to get back their impounded van, sadly they forgot to bring any proof of ownership and the van is not registered under any of their names.

Next, as the police are working behind their little Plexiglas barricade, the three start talking (loudly) about different super interesting things going on in their lives. Like how someone they know apparently owes them some money. Now I'm sitting in the middle of the room against the wall, the woman is seated to my left and the two guys are seated farther away on my right side. So their discussion is being yelled over my head, as I patiently go through the press log and try not to laugh. I'm not totally paying attention to the conversation (I do have a job to do) when I hear the woman say, in all seriousness, "Well then lets rob 'em."

I look over to the guys who are staring at her like she's suddenly sprouted a golden horn out of her forehead. "What?" She said, "It's not like they can hear us."

Genius, lets propose larceny in the Police Station.

Sadly I had to leave before I was able to hear the rest of their plan. I'm sure it would have made MacGuyver proud though.

What's your zombie plan?

Instead of putting together an intelligent presentation on Perspectives on media and our understanding of the social world, I’ve put together a list of things you should have or know incase of a zombie uprising (watching Shawn of the Dead).

1. Friends that you know wont freak out on you and randomly run away and either take something necessary with them or lead the zombie horde to your location.
2. A sharp and hopefully long object. Your gun only has a finite amount of bullets, your machete never needs reloading.
3. A gun, for when you’re surrounded and have no hope of getting away.
4. Snacks, many zombies are slow be prepared to wait them out.
5. A change of clothes, blood gets sticky and smells bad.
6. A defendable location, and as much as I’d love to say a bar they usually have big breakable windows, I’m thinking more along the lines of a secluded house or bomb shelter.
7. A get away plan, I live near the coast so I’ve always figured I’d sail into the ocean on a stolen yacht.

Although I do have a quick question why do the dead always want to eat the living? It’s not like they need the sustenance, and when they are done eating how exactly do their bodies process the meat? They’re dead so I would assume their digestive tracks don’t work anymore, does it just sit in their stomach, do really aggressive zombies that eat a lot become big and bloated? OK that wasn’t so quick.

Sticker madness

So A bought a sticker machine. He's wanted one for awhile and finally found one he wanted on eBay. I worry now for the poor cars of the Peninsula. He and Shane (OK mainly Shane) went a little crazy in SB, and from auto decorations alone you would have thought that the citizens of beautiful Santa Barbara were into some kinky stuff. And though hundreds of miles separate the two I'm a little on the worried side.

Randomness

Whenever a show can work in They Might Be Giants' Put a Little Bird House in Your Soul, you know that show is gold.

And thank you Deb for making me a tape of it, way back when, every song on the CD still makes me smile. Especially the minimum wage song, because it is so true. I'm just sad I lost that tape and so I don't have it anymore.

I will forever whistle in the dark.

The polite thing to do

I had an interview for an internship last week. I never know how those things go. In general I get kind of nervous and over-smile, I always wonder if the interviewer thinks I'm just really happy to be there or if they think I'm going to eat them. And usually I don't eat before hand so I could use a snack, not that human meat is an option or anything.

Anyways they said they would let us know back by that weekend. Sunday came and went with no response. When Tuesday rolled around I figured I didn't get it and that they just forgot about me. But then I also realized I had never sent a thank you note after the interview. It was almost a week, was that way too late to send one now? I wasn't sure about the etiquette of a late thank you letter, actually I'm not really up on any etiquette. But I figured I might want to try and write for them in the future so I should do the polite thing and send one in. So at about midnight last night I finally sent it in.

This morning I woke up and saw that I had a message in my inbox from the editor. It was in reply to my extremely brief and uninformative thank you note, it read, and I quote, "Can you come over to the office this afternoon to talk about scheduling?"

Now I of course assume this to mean that he thought I was someone else and that he was replying to the wrong email. But not one to let an opportunity pass I quickly write back letting him know I would come over. The rest of the morning I considered how I would take the rejection when they realized I wasn't the person they were looking for. Hopefully they would feel bad and I could parley that into them letting me write something.

And then I got a call around three. It was the editor letting me know that he couldn't make the meeting, crap I wasn't even going to get the rejection in person. But no, he wanted to reschedule for tomorrow and that I had gotten the job. That really wasn't what I had expected, so I tried to reorder my thoughts and sound coherent on the phone. I think it worked since I'm talking to him tomorrow.

But now I wonder, would I have gotten the position if I hadn't sent a thank you note? Or was it all just funny timing?

Stupid dreams

I've heard that dreams are supposed to be unconscious desires that you can't accept during your waking hours. Or that they are a way for your subconscious to work out issues. And I have to hope and pray that this is untrue because last night I had the weirdest dream, and don't know how it fits into either of those scenarios. Of course it is quickly fading into the ether but here's what I can remember of it.

For some odd reason I was with "Way of the Dragon" bad guy, Chuck Norris (OK fine, and Walker Texas Ranger star), and we were trying to get away from something. As the dream goes on I realize that Chuck and I are an item (ew), and that the longer I'm with him the fatter he is getting. Before I wake up poor Chuck is morbidly obese and now I'm trying to get away from him.

I wake up thinking what the hell? Chuck Norris? And now I'm just disturbed, I don't usually remember my dreams and this is the one my mind chooses to replay? And why couldn't I have chosen a cute guy to dream of? And is it wrong to try and get away from a guy if he's starting to visibly inflate?

Again, Chuck Norris, there is something wrong with me.

Pointless or cool?

I saw this on Gizmodo and at first glance thought it was pretty cool. It's the VinylDisc and on one side it contains 70 minutes of music on a CD, the other side is a vinyl record. Of course it only plays back three minutes so it's more a novelty but the idea is pretty cool. This is brought to you by those quirky Germans at Optimal Media Productions and they even have an English band, Fightstar, signed up (although they are only releasing 3,000 albums). I'd love to see it but sadly I have no record player and I don't tend to buy CDs anymore. But it looks cool and I'm always sold on packaging.


On a side note how many times did I use the word cool in a small little paragraph? Note to self: buy thesaurus.

Modern myths

When I was little my mom would read me bedtime stories, my favorite was Perseus and Medusa. I used to think that "Clash of Titans" was the best movie ever made, and I almost became a Classics major at UCSB. I always thought Enkidu got screwed and found it funny that every culture seems to have some type of Cinderella story. I've always loved mythology, any type from any region.

So while doing a paper for 290 I found it interesting that many scholars argue that the media are the new myth makers. Myths aren't just fantastic stories from the ancient world, instead they are stories told to help maintain the social order. They don't have to be fiction, instead current mythology explains the unexplainable, brings reasons to events, and helps maintain the status quo.

You can find the main myths in papers and broadcast news all over the country. The article I read mainly looked at the New York Times after September 11. The four main myths used were the end of innocence, the victim, the hero and a foreboding future. The victim could be you if circumstances were different, the hero (emergency workers mainly) have all the best qualities of society and are fearless leaders, in the end of innocence the utopia you once lived in is gone forever and you'll have to get used to a completely different normal, and a foreboding future warns you of strife to come and that this isn't the end of the pain and sacrifice. You see the hero and the victim in news a lot, but the end of innocence and a foreboding future not so often.

The one that I found rather disturbing was a foreboding future. It sets the society up for a future that they know is going to be hard. In the case of 9/11 it warns the reader that tough times are coming, that everyone had to be vigilant, that we had to be careful because an attack could come from anywhere. It got people ready for America to invade Afghanistan. A news paper primed the public for war.

I'm sure it has been done before and will be done again, but I don't know how I feel about that.

The myths that the Times created helped people deal with an act that seemed senseless. It helped them cope with loss, heal and come together as a nation. Mythology gives people a sense of belonging, you can relate to the story, you recognize the archetypes and know what to expect. Mythology isn't dead it's alive and well in journalism.


*Lule, Jack (2002). Myth and terror on the editorial page: The New York Times responds to Sept. 11. 2001.

Speaking of lame, oh wait

I've heard of banning books, and movies but never parts of speech. Apparently Brazil's Federal District Governor Jose Roberto Arruda has banned the use of present participles. Ok he didn't ban them from the entire country just government documents, because of inefficiency. That's great, basically anything ending in 'ing.' I thought our government got bogged down in frivolous pursuits but this wins. good thing Brazil has no other problems to worry about.

Rules of Debate

Seminar classes can sometimes be enjoyable because of the debates they produce. If you like to argue they can be rather enjoyable. But some people don't realize that there are some niceties that must be observed.

Ok when debating someone here are a few of the lamest things you can do:

1. Pull figures out of your ass, yes I could do this too but I’m only saying what I know to be fact, your 89% of randomness fact should be backed up by a source.
2. Don’t start off sentences with “as you know…” it’s manipulative and lame, no I don’t know that that’s why we’re arguing about it (especially if you are using it every other sentence)
3. Use hypothetical situations, if it hasn’t happened don’t try to assume you know what would happen, you can argue what ifs until you die but it doesn’t mean anything.
4. Try to win an argument with volume alone, this should be an intelligent conversation not a shouting match. Being louder does not make you right.
5. Try to form your arguments, they should be coherent, it shouldn’t take you an hour to say no you’re wrong. After two minutes cue the music.
6. Yes we know that you are the most informed person about every single issue, but if you are in a seminar setting you personally don’t have to comment on every single issue, let other people have a say.
7. If race or sex have nothing to do with the issue, don’t bring them up.
8. And the metric system is just plain better.

Congratulations!

I want to send out my congratulations to Jerry Roberts who will be receiving The PEN Society's First Amendment award on November 6th at a dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

Former editor of the Santa Barbara News-Press, before the meltdown, and current publisher of the Daily Nexxus, UCSB's daily paper. An amazing guy and a wonderful teacher. I took a class with him last fall and really enjoyed it.

So I wanted to say congratulations and good luck with McCaw.

And come to find out the smell of eggs makes both of us think we're in trouble, yeah something in common.