It's unfortunate when an expensive education doesn't take.

I've been on Facebook since the days when a valid university email address was required. Facebook opened itself up to the world, and my "friend" list grew; I found a lot of people, a lot of them found me, and Facebook kept growing. Recently I was swamped with a sudden flood of requests to be added by people I haven't seen in ten to fifteen years or more. I have to admit, I feel guilty, because many of these people leave me posts or send messages asking what I've been up to and how I've been, and my replies have been scarce, to say the least. Kind of sad, really, but I know that I've changed from the last time they saw me--probably more than I'm even aware of. Sometimes I worry that these people have changed too, or worse yet, maybe some haven't changed at all.

Today, my reasons for being hesitant have been justified, if even only slightly, for being cautious. I witnessed someone I know (in the loosest sense of the word) make one of the most asinine comments I've ever had the displeasure to read.

While I have begun in recent years to develop some strong political opinions, I'm not normally one that looks to share these views unsolicited. I'm actually not going to do much of it now, either, because I'm going to concentrate more on the language than the politics. When I saw a "friend's" status (someone I haven't really talked to since my junior high school years--and we're talking back in 1987-88), I decided that revisiting any sort of friendship with this face from my ancient history is definitely not something I'm interested in. Here's what the status read:

"*name withheld for reasons of taste* wants Barack Obama to FAIL!"

Well, I've come to the conclusion that this person is apparently an idiot, and considering that all the memories I have to go on are from twenty-plus years ago, I'm also wondering whether or not he's changed. From what I recall, this person could throw a tantrum and pout with the best of them, so I suspect I can stop wondering--he hasn't.

This isn't the first provocative statement on the topic from this particular person, and my knee-jerk reaction was to fire a message back with something equally as juvenile, such as, "That's funny, I just spent the last eight years wanting GW to stop failing," but that wouldn't really accomplish anything. My reaction was simply to grant what I assume was his coded wish: I "unfriended" him, because any other action would be a waste of my time and his. Here's my reasoning.

I have always stood by my belief that Bush is/was/always will be a moron, but hear me out, because regardless of your political affiliation, there is a distinct difference here; I have never wished him to outright fail. For example, when I studied abroad, there were people that asked me how I thought the last couple years of Bush's administration would go. My answer usually was, "Well, I have a feeling it's going to get worse before it gets better." Whether or not I was correct is debatable.

Take a look at the language as I mentioned earlier; one statement signifies a sense of hopelessness while at the same time yearning for a change in that momentum, yet the other reveals an attitude toward someone that is not only bitter, but also belies a hidden undertone of fear that this person may not fail. Keep in mind that one observation was made after six years rather than after only a month of performance in the position. I would hope that most people shouldn't need this explained, but an educated adult with a career and family has convinced me that he is unable to grasp these concepts. Even if this came from someone with whom I had shared more history, I would have a hard time taking much they had to say very seriously anymore.

If anyone reading has made it this far--especially those that disagree with my views--and is offended by what I've written, I offer a challenge: convince me that a statement from anyone actively wanting a president to fail is not completely ludicrous and exactly the sort of harmful partisanship that is making politics today so damn ugly (you can use whatever sense of the word "fail" you'd like, and I'm tending to think in terms of any president in general, not necessarily Obama). I won't say it's an impossible task, but the chance of success is fairly minimal.

For those that haven't made it this far, I suppose saying, "Good riddance," is unnecessary.

For those that do agree and are still here; choir, preaching to it, blah blah…

Vacuuming Ants Really is Ineffective

Once again, I have managed to elude the Super Bowl and its holiest of holies, the Super Bowl commercials. I'd like to say that it's because of my principles, but the real truth is that I just don't care. Yes, the allure of watching men paid to hit each other and the companies that have built a tradition of buying multi-million dollar minutes during the station breaks have failed to entice me. I would be interested to see if the current economic situation has affected the price tags of those commercials, but that's about as far as my curiosity goes.

I've thought about the dilemma of marketing as it relates to my band. I would really like to have as many people as possible listen to us, and becoming financially secure by playing music is something I could live with, but I hate the idea of actively trying to convince people that they need something they could easily live without. What else is marketing, really?

I had a good laugh recently due to bad marketing. This is the banner ad that showed up at the top of a, shall we say, popular social networking site.


They got me wrong on two of three counts; I'm admittedly a few pounds heavier than I was a few years ago, but I'm not gay and am not taking part in the whole dating scene. I'm not too sure I'd be too keen on striking up a relationship with someone over the Internet anyway--gay or straight, skinny or fat.

I should get up early and get to the gym tomorrow. I'm feeling chubby...

Vampires Are the New Black

At the moment, I'm procrastinating on writing a story, a story that I need to submit tomorrow morning. I have the basic premise, a strong start, and some notes from my last session to remind myself where my train of thought was going, but I just can't seem to feel motivated. I figured that if I wrote an entry here, I might get those ol' creative juices flowing. Considering I just spent five minutes staring at a black screen before even getting this down, I have a feeling this will take some effort--or maybe I can trick myself into falling prey to the muse. My first step will be to consciously create a playlist on iTunes; I have just short of sixty-five days worth of music, consisting of just about any genre you can name, and there's nothing worse than listening to a song or two that gets you slipping into that state of suspended reality only to be bashed over the head with a train wreck of a song. Meh, I'll do that as soon as I finish here. I don't need a soundtrack to rant, or at least today I don't.

I hope to be flooded with inspiration this semester. I'm a graduate assistant at the North American Review, and I have a feeling I'll be reading a lot of the fiction submissions as one of my duties. Now, in one of my rare allusions to the title of a post, I was extremely disappointed by a story that I read the other day. For purposes of privacy and professional ethics, I won't go into details, but this particular story started off beautifully; I was engaged completely. There was a dream-like quality that didn't seem over the top at all, in fact, I feel as if it enhanced the subject matter. All this is going great when, BLAM!, vampires. If you've ever read the NAR, then I'm sure you'll find that there's a marked absence of genre fiction. I blame a lack of the author's ability to research and the recent success of Twilight; a movie I haven't seen and never plan to. Man, I still want to read the story that could have been. Maybe I should write it myself. There we go; my muse can be spite.

Well, I guess I'll wrap this up and start compiling the music necessary to connect my fingers directly to my brain. Deadlines await.

A Local Amatuer

The semester is now halfway through its first week, or I am halfway through the first week of the semester if you don't care for passive statements. Due to some of last semester carrying over (my fault) and the massive helping my big eyes convinced me to scoop onto my plate this semester, I fear for my sanity once things get rolling. To help ease the pain as I spiral downward, or climb upward, assuming some may consider insanity to be an improvement on my current condition, I have decided to take a moment and once again offer a list of search terms that led a small handful of eccentric people here.


I really don't know what to say about a couple of the above items, except that my first reaction is that I don't think I ever, ever want to meet these people. After a second thought, I realize that some of them might be normal people being zany, but someone searching for a Klingon chandelier is just a little bit too specific for my tastes. Who knows, I may be wrong.

Well, I suppose I should head into the arctic conditions and get to class. I've got band practice tonight, and we're thinking about recording some of our newer songs for an updated demo. If we get some decent results, a couple of them may be posted somewhere; I'll be sure to put a link up here if and when that happens.

Ting-a-ling!

Two Thirds of a Masterpiece is More Than Enough

I've been back on the farm for six days now, and I can say with certainty that spending a considerable amount of time here is much more enjoyable when one can go outside and sit on the porch with a cup of coffee without the threat of frostbite looming. One positive side-effect is that I've covered at least two thirds of the required reading for one my classes next semester. With two weeks left before the first day of class, I think I can safely say that I'll finish with that and be able to get a head-start on a couple other classes.

I suppose I should change the strings on my bass as well; we had our first show--holy crap!--a little over two weeks ago already. I guess time flies. Anyway, despite my halfhearted attempts at maintenance, the strings are rusting, so they have to go. The gig went very well, perhaps better than we expected, and the turnout was also surprising, considering the forecast blizzard that began in the midst of our first set. It was a learning experience, and now I think we'll really be ready to blast the roof off a place. For anyone reading this that made it, thanks for braving the weather and checking us out. For those that didn't make it, no worries; there will be other opportunities. Oh, I also got a message from Ryan, our guitarist/vocalist, that he started up a new website. Check it out and see what you think. It appears he added "Some Rare Footage" at the bottom of the main page. My bandwidth is only slightly better than dialup out here, but I waited it out and discovered that he posted a clip from one of our practice sessions; a song that pretty much came to life as you hear it there. It seems that we need to go back through some of our recordings and dig out some of those gems for polishing.

I had some things to write here other than just what boils down to a glorified Dear Diary entry. Sitting here in my old stomping grounds, a place I admittedly love to hate, there has been a constant barrage of occurrences that drag me into bouts of sappy sentimentality one minute, and then throw me into fits of rage at my perception of the general stupidity of people. I say "my perception" because there is a sliver of reason as I type this, as well as the realization that throwing everyone into the same category is at the very most untrue, and at the very least unfair. It also makes me look like an elitist snob. This snapshot came from a dynamic banner ad the other day, and I think it hints at how I've been feeling lately: as if I'm being looked down upon in a manner that reveals just how ignorant that person is.



If I have to explain the irony of this ad, then it's time for you to brush up on you're grammar.

I think I'm going to blame it on what I've been reading lately--pure Vonnegut. Between his fiction and non-fiction, there's this air of sadness even in the cheeriest of subjects. For instance, Vonnegut writes often about the need for inclusion in large groups, whether that means family or people that you treat as family--and most people know that family doesn't always treat each other very well. As soon as he makes his point about inclusion, Vonnegut's next essay discusses the suicides of his mother and sister, his father's circumstantial fade into obscurity, his son's mental breakdown and institutionalization, and how much of his own life that has been spent in isolation due to his career. Like I was saying earlier, there's a pendulum swinging to extremes and I find myself yearning to be around people only to find myself turning on my heel and beating the door down as soon as it shuts behind me. Kurt Vonnegut (Jr.) is interesting as hell, but I think this immersion in his writing is definitely affecting me.

Or is that effecting? I'm kidding...