You Heard It Here First
In X-Men 3, the Juggernaut actually says, "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch." The world simultaneously laughed and wept.
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In X-Men 3, the Juggernaut actually says, "Don't you know who I am? I'm the Juggernaut, bitch." The world simultaneously laughed and wept.
While being a complete nerd earlier, I was thumbing through O'Guinnicus.com's web usage statistics for May and found something that was completely amazing. Apparently, if you search for "kimberly strassel" in Google, my rant about Jon Stewart ranks at an astounding number 7 out of the possible hits. Meanwhile, if you search "O'Guinn," this site comes up as result number 5. I'll never crawl out from behind the shadow of Thomas O'Guinn, Professor at the Communications Rearch Institute of the University of Illinois.
Ah, the first sports entry. And what a better topic than the sports icon of my childhood?
Recently, the St. Louis Post Dispatch posted a story about how former Cardinals shortstop Ozzie Smith and current Cardinals manager Tony La Russa just can't seem to get along. Well, less of La Russa, more of the Wizard. In any case, Ozzie's being a whiner about not getting any action in his last season as a Cardinal, losing the starting spot to Royce Clayton, who at the time wasn't injured. You can read the rest of the story on ESPN, disseminator of all sports news that has to do with Barry Bonds.
And on the 7th day, he rested. If only Scott would do the same. In his latest post, he opines:
I disabled comments because I hate comments. AND YOU.The "YOU" that he refers to is, of course, me. What's worse is that I extended the olive branch in my last post, saying in part:
Also, I like Scott Troyan. I'm just not in like with him.This clearly shows that I like Scott and meant only light-hearted disrepect by way of my last editorial. As it turns out, however, Scott Troyan is a bastard, and a bit of a tramp if you ask me.
Sure, his site is prettier than mine. Yes, it's true: my layout and color scheme is the Movable Type default. I've made one half-assed attempt to upgrade. Unlike the irredeemable Troyan the Younger, I believe the content and message should outweigh the design and form of a site. Bear with me through my bland layout, and I will show you the truth, my children. Scott is like the guy that has a big van and a bag of candy: he seems great at first, and hell, he's looking for his lost puppy. But get inside that van, and your ass is going to hurt come morning.
And one more thing, Scott. Don't you ever bring David Bowie into this again.
Damn you, Scott Troyan. Your irresponsible leftist postings have spurred me to create a "Politics" category against my better judgement. I want you to know how much that upsets me. You couldn't have waited for Betacrat to be done, could you? You made me do this, Troyan, and for that, I shall never forgive you.
To briefly rehash the events leading up to this post, let's examine history:
Mr. Troyan has this to say:
If like, Russ Feingold to (sic) Bob Jones University and they booed, hissed, and spat at him, my reaction wouldn’t be “OMG kids have no respect”, I’d instead laugh and be like what’d you expect, you doof? College kids are passionate and idealistic, no matter where their beliefs fall.
I disagree. If Russ Feingold went to Bob Jones University, he would undoubtedly be booed. My reaction would be the same; the people who find it in their best interest to boo and hiss during a speech or turn their backs when someone gets up to talk are representative of a culture in which it is perfectly acceptable to be rude and insulting. I find it terribly courageous for these people to go into hostile environments in order to promote some kind of understanding in a country that has become increasingly more divided in the past eight years. We have plenty of people to blame for this, Republican and Democrat alike.
We've lost a sort of social capital that we had before the "glorious" revolution of the 1960s. What we have now is a bunch of stupid liberals (and I mean that there are stupid liberals, not that all liberals are stupid) providing a voice to all the liberals, preaching this self-actualizing, socially divisive dogma that stems from the "I don't give a shit about anybody but me" ideology of the 1960s. It seems that the civil religion of America has become selfishness and apathy for God and country.
Yet I digress. The point here is that the reaction that Senator McCain received is indicative of the society in which we live today. We're nasty and brutish, devoid of courage and lacking respect. Our problem isn't the war in Iraq, it isn't an energy crisis. The real issues start at home. We've gotten to the point where speaking out and organizing protests is no longer effective. It's all too commonplace. What we really need is a little personal integrity. It'll be infinitely more difficult to be "pushed around" by the government and corporations, or whoever the popular oppressor at the time may be, if we actually stand for something other than turning our backs to a man whose character speaks more than his words ever could.
Also, I like Scott Troyan. I'm just not in like with him.
You know, if I needed to hide $90,000 pretty quickly, I can't say that my first instinct would be the freezer.
The money was divided among various frozen food containers, according to the heavily redacted affidavit.Cute.Agents told a judge the money was part of a $100,000 payment that had been delivered by an informant in the bribery probe, which already has led to guilty pleas by a Kentucky businessman and a former Jefferson aide.
During a speech at the markedly liberal "New School" (a college, supposedly), Senator John McCain was booed. Some students and faculty went as far as to stand up and turn their backs.
It's odd to me that someone who has been lauded as a bi-partisan champion of responsible lawmaking could be so coldly received. Sure, he spoke at Liberty University, Jerry Falwell's breeding ground for idiot conservative robots, but the text of the speech showed that McCain is an honest, responsible man. That's something that can't be said for most of the members of his party.
In fact, his speech at the New School wasn't too different from the one he gave at Liberty. The difference was the crowd. I can understand not liking the guy, and I can understand a protest, but for God's sake, I will never understand why people in my generation must act like complete imbeciles. It speaks poorly of all of us.
I edited the permissions on the album page so you don't have to be a registered user to see most albums.
I've decided to make a weekly... well... periodically updated post about what it is that I'm listening to. Is this a "listen to this or you suck list"? Yes. If you don't agree, I don't care. It's my site. If you don't like what I like, go buy your own domain and write a list of your own crap. And that's what it is. Crap. Anyway, in no particular order:
If you can't already tell, I'm having trouble deciding if I want the titles on entries to be properly capitalized or lowercase. I guess that it really doesn't matter. Anyway.
I officially started my search for a summer job today. I filled out an application for Dierberg's online, then headed to Slacker's and FYE to turn in paper applications. I got the feeling that I wouldn't really have as easy a time fitting in either place as I did at Music Biz, but I guess that's not a big issue. At Slacker's, they were playing some really bad punk music, which was a contrast to my purchase of a Fire Theft vinyl single and the new Maritime. The guy looked at me like I was nuts, and I couldn't help but wonder if that was the same look I had on my face when people were buying Bright Eyes.
And while we're at it, let's talk about Bright Eyes.
Connor Oberst, the lead singer of Bright Eyes, used to play with the guys that would eventually form the Faint, a band who at least one good CD (more than what can be said about Bright Eyes, who scores a win in my book only for "Lover I Don't Have to Love," and that's only because that song is awesome to... well... nevermind. Listen to the song and figure it out). The Faint would eventually make their own sound and have Oberst beg to get back together with them, only to be snubbed. Now we all know what it's like to be snubbed by someone you really like. What does it make you do? It makes Oberst write bad songs. Congrats to the Faint for having the foresight not to include him in any of their future plans. Stupid Bright Eyes.
Yet, I digress.
The Maritime CD is excellent, as I said before. Pitchfork even gave it a 78, more than double what their first album got, and in case you aren't aware, the people at Pitchfork have an even higher opinion of their musical tastes than I do.
It's been one of those interesting days. Nothing markedly bad has happened, save for the hyper-inflated gas costs, but then again, nothing extraordinarily good happened, either.
An A- for Political Science 387: National Security Policy. As some of you may remember, this was the class for which I had to read 30-60 pages and write summaries for every night. Professor Jurgen Scheffran may not have made my favorites list during the semester, but around the final grade time, he was aces all the way.
Oh, and that 10 page paper I wrote on Africa? 97%. Take that, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Not a whole hell of a lot, apparently. Last night, Eric and I ran to two different grocery stores and saw huge groups of kids at each. I'm pretty sure that there's a Hart's gang and a Dierberg's gang. Maybe they get into spirited fisticuffs ala West Side Story when they tread on each other's turf. Perhaps I'll join. Hart's 4 lyfe.
After rummaging through the Illini Union Bookstore today to get prices on Dreamweaver MX or Studio MX, only to find that they A) had neither; and B) were selling old software for cheap. So, I mosied on over to Adobe's website and found out that the MX series is dated by about two years and has been replaced by the 8 series. When I saw the prices, I quite nearly shat. $999 for Studio 8! Ah, but there was a silver lining to this cloud...
You see, as an American college student, I qualify under Adobe's educational discount program. Here's the kicker: Studio 8, which, as I stated before is normally $999, is $299. $299. The price of a ticket in Champaign. Now the only question left is Which one of you is going to nab it as my birthday present?
Greg over at GregCJackson.com has added a blogging function that allows his site move up exactly one peg in my book. Now if he could only get a photo album that doesn't rely on Facebook.
I just realized that last night I had one dream where I argued an won against Jon Stewart (upon review, however, it was actually Richard Lewis), and another where I got in a fight with someone not to be named. All in all, I'd give this dream cycle a B+.
It's been what could be classified as a terrible week. However, I am not one to let adversity keep me down. After a run in with the long arm of the law, a huge disappointment by way of missing my favorite band in their only reasonably priced midwestern date, three consecutive days of stealing internet from the Jewish center across the street because Insight is "migrating their servers," and a relatively unsavory sub-leasing deal, I soundly rebounded today with a B+ on a research paper for which I did no research, an appointment to the Illinois Student Senate Appropriations Committiee, a complete overhaul of the home page (including some bold ColdFusion code, if I do say so myself), and the construction of this extremely long sentence.
Up next on the docket is a STAT 100 final on Wednesday, a visit from Greg (and Carl?) on Thursday, and a Political Theory paper and Constitution II final on Friday. Saturday the parents roll into town to whisk me away back to the Southland. June 20 is my reunion with the Champaign County Courthouse. That's all for now. I promise to never leave you again.
Shitty local bands are not allowed to issue obiter dicta during live performances.
I talked to Dad for a little bit yesterday before he had to let me go so he could take care of this. Apparently this guy's really good at getting out of prisons and jails.
Here it is, 2:40 AM. I'm on my 6th straight hour of working on the final paper for Political Science 387: National Security Policy. I foolishly misread the instructions, mistaking the required 3,000 to 5,000 word paper for a much smaller 3-5 page one, but caught it early enough to not be set back too terribly much. I picked the Sub-Saharan Africa Regional Security Complex as my region of analysis, and am currently not happy with Africa as a result. As it stands right now, I have 2,441 words. I'm feeling pretty good about it, I guess; I still have to analyze the South African Regional Security Complex, look at the Sub-Saharan Africa complex as a whole, and conclude. That'll fill up the rest of the word requirement with some room to spare.
Anyway, I need to hit the ol' dusty trail.
My first entire year at the University of Illinois is nearly complete. At the end of it, I will have improved my GPA (albeit slightly), gotten and broken up with a girlfriend, shut down my old xanga site, built a professional site for myself, started a political blog, and completely renovated my old website. In retrospect, it hasn't been a bad year at all.
The summer is already shaping up to be an interesting one. Mom, Eric, Nick and I are taking a trip out to Philadelphia at some point over the summer. This could facilitate a brief romp through Philly proper with Scott, even though he lives in Boston. On July 25, Mike, Dan Reid, and I will all be heading up to the University of Michigan for NOAC 2006. I'll see Carl for a few days, I'll see Greg for a few more, and I'm sure I'll catch Allison for a bit while she's home.
As for the rest of the year, I have a 3,000-5,000 word paper due tomorrow. This marks the first time in college, outside of a foreign language class, that I've been given a target number of words instead of a page count. Anyway, it's tentaviely titled Diamonds Are a Rebel's Best Friend: Security Concerns in Sub-Saharan Africa. I also have a five page paper for Political Theory due sometime next week, and two finals to study for. It's all coming to a close, and I can't say that I'm disappointed.