|
03:00 0306.27
The Stromburglar is dead. Long live the Stromburglar. Yes, folks, our great hero of the twenty-four-hour fillibuster, Strom Thrumond, is dead. Sure, he might have had some segregationist crap going on for him, but he was instrumental in doing away with the Poll Tax in South Carolina, and was the first southern Senator since Reconstruction to have a black person on his political staff. So maybe he really was against the rights of the states being eroded by the feds, and it just happened that his cultural upbringing and the political situation of the time clouded his judgement to an extent. He did, you know, make the very true remark ?The party of our fathers is dead. The Democratic Party has forsaken the people to become the party of minority groups, power-hungry union leaders, political bosses and big businessmen looking for government contracts and favors.? And if you don't think the Democrats have anything to do with big business, think about the politics of people associated with businesses in the muti-billion dollar entertainment cartels like the RIAA and MPAA. Stick that in your #| and smoke it. The New Deal may well have propped up the economy before the real boom associated with WWII and given people jobs, and I'm always for infrastructure unto the last, but I don't see Daschle or Gore or Al forking Sharpton out there endorsing the creation of government-funded jobs for unemployed welfare-recipients or real, feasible, and maintainable urban infrastructure renewal that residents are proud of, since they built and run them. Individual Post | Comments (0) 23:59 0306.25 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over. Ah, blogging. So, Monday, I slept, I think, for most of the day, and I think I did Tuesday, as well; however, this isn't important, and the lack of importance to most of Monday and Tuesday is probably the reason why I was sleeping. There was, though, something to merit writing about on Monday. See, somehow or another, the Midwest Turf Association was obliged to to instruct Andrea and her little brother in the mystic, dark arts of Lacrosse. I call it that because it resembles quite closely a game I've been formulating in my head for years, based on intersting points I've gleaned from watching football, hockey, baseball, and the occasional Cricket and Australian Rules Football (or whatever the heck it's called) broadcasts, and the other reason is that all sorts of people become quite interested -- almost, say, conversationally preoccupied -- in a positive manner when it's mentioned. Somehow or another, Andrea et cetera coming over to play with Crystal-Ball morphed into Andrea and Amanda coming over to be instructed by the lesser sibling, with me helping out. Why? Although the expected point of contention (put bluntly by my mother afterwards, asking "Did Amanda behave herself?" XD) never flared, there still was the whole thing of me ... playing sports. Around people. Certain people. Although I woke physically beforehand on Wednesday, my brain turned on sometime around 9:30 or 10 AM, when my mom popped on the intercom to tell my dad that the grocery store in Mentone, my grandparent's place of residence, had exploded overnight. Unbelievable. Ish-- the guy who ran Frank & Jerry's at that point, was killed, seeing as part of the building was the owner's apartment. Ishmael (well, probably Ismail) was an older Palestinian gentleman who, like my grandfather, collected old coins. His son, whose name I can't currently recall, was injured. I'm not sure how badly, but I bet it was probably pretty severely. Fortunately, in one way or another, the other son that worked there was unable to return to the US after visitng the family in Palestine, as he just happened to visit during September 2001. I remember my grandmother telling me this when it happened, and thinking it was incredibly boneheaded, but it probably was a good thing overall. However, grocery stores don't tend to explode, from my personal experience. Certainly, rural northern Indiana doesn't have the most strictly-enforced building codes, but Frank & Jerry's had been there long before the Palestinians owned it-- a good fifty or sixty years, at least, from what I remember of the building. And if the building was going to naturally succomb to some sort of spontaneous blasty, I would suspect it would have been shortly after constuction or other modifications, not five or ten years after it had new owners. Harvey, a Brother from my dad's group of friends from his days at South Bend Central High School, called later in the day to say that the stuff had been on WNDU, the NBC station for the area, since he knows that's where the grandparentals live and such. Here's their story. It has some things that blatantly contradict my knowledge-- fire instead of explosion with fire, and the Po Po wondering why the dudes were inside the building, when I know that there was a part of that building which was an upstairs apartment. I also wouldn't really call the store a Mentone Landmark anymore than the Phillips 66 Station turned auto shop-- everything in a small town is a 'landmark' in the use of an urbanite, as there aren't mindless, generic miles of mindless, generic restraunts parked infront of mindless, generic stripmalls in a small town. It's a landmark in the sense that now it'll be harder for me to remember where Franklin street is coming from the park south of town-- that is, if I ever make it back to Mentone. Or there's a Mentone left to make it back to, with more than half the people there old and dying, and all the other ones moving out or now being exploded. Of course, it looks from the quotes like the police are trying to pin the blame on the owners, when, if anyone is to blame, it's probably some dumbass that never went to the store, but knew there were some 'damned towlheaded desert niggers' that ran it or whatever the hell some imecile who'd blow the place up would use as an epithet for 'Palestinians'. I don't know, I just made that up. Not that Palestinians are black-- they're Semites, but I don't think that'd probably be important to somebody that probably has a rusted, small-size, short-bed, mufflerless diesel pickup with prominently-displayed Confederate battle flags and white bedclothes that have interestingly-placed holes. I think this calls for a picture of Arafat.  So, uh, anyway, enough of that. Went to church this evening. Had to go to Mikey's class of junior highers and the random college kids that don't get a class, which would have sucked, but Mikey is at some youth trip so we Mike Stegemoller, who is most excellent. However, he kind of, you know, talked like a Texan does to a foreigner, seeing as he's Texan and Middle Schoolers are about as foriegn to anybody who isn't a Middle Schooler as they come. Afterwards, said college kids (including myself), along with how-exactly-is-this-kid-just-a-high-school-sophomore Andrew Edwards, went to the Starbucks behind that Irish Pub, Claddagh or whatever, on 96th on the far (that is, Geist-ward) side of Keystone, sort of by the Rover dealership. Although, I think, en toto, the amount of people there included, but was not limited to, El Baile, Zak, Christie, Andrew, Andrea, and myself, it was only the altter three that spent any significant time chatting at the outdoor seating, as the others decided to follow Dan's lead of shooting off bottle rockets at the retention pond behind the strip mall containing Starbucks. I can't remember really much we talked about, except college, and the fact that there were a whole bunch of Corvettes and a live band at the pub. Also, two car commercials happened whilst we relaxed and I, at least, sipped on my Tazoberry-- whipped cream, please. The first one happened just as the Starbucks people were closing up for the night. Some black Japanese sedan pulls up in front of the store. because two of the four sides of the café ˇre glass, I can see in the side and out the front door as if I were in the building. So, this guy, mid twenties, black pants, unbuttoned white dress shirt, probably with his loosened blue tie sitting in the passengers seat walks up to the door, and tries to open it. Locked. He fumbles with the handle. He knows its locked, and he know's it's intnetional, because he sees the people inside sweeping up. But, he thinks, in the typical manner-- maybe, just maybe, if I fumble with this enough, it will open, and then I can prtend like the shop isn't closed and the people inside can, too pretend, like they're still working. However, he's not a four-year-old, and his short spat of make-believe doesn't last for more than two seconds. His expression changes. "MY WIFE IS PREGNANT," he yells just loud enough so that he knows it carries through the glass. The two just-out-of-highschool girls working there look up, and come to the door, and unlock it. They speak in a normal tone, which, due to the live band and incoming corvettes, doesn't carry to my table. Their gestures are easy enough to undertsand. "It's just one little frappuchino double whip with extra mango; it won't take long," the man says, desperately. The girls, not far from that stage in live, empathise. "But, you know, we're already closed, sir, the machines are shut down for the nigh, we can't make anythingt." The man looks even more desperate. Before he can do anything, the other girl chimes in. "Don't worry! There's another Starbucks just down the street, about a mile, at Allisonville. They stay open later than we do. " "Th-- oh-- ye-- Thank you," stumbles out the man's mouth, remembering the ubiquitous nature of the chain. He smiles, and leaves. The girls giggle, and lock the door. He gets back in his black sedan, flips on the lights, and drives out of the lot, giving a nice silhouette of the car's side from the dim glow of the twilight sky and lights from the pub, and then a good look at the rear light assembly. The perfect place to add in the finance rates and the small text. The next one, oh the next one. Two girls come rollerblading in about half an hour later. These girls are a little older than the starbucks workers, and they carry drinks from the somewhat-nearby Arby's as they sit down at a table at the front corner of the Starbucks, far enough away from us not to engage, but still close enough so that I can glean the information that they're off-duty hostesses from the pub. Blondes-- fairish complexion, athletic looking, with their hair up for ease of travel, wearing white t-shirts and those sports-type black shorts. I try and start off on a conversation with my table, saying how I never could quite get the hang of rollerblades. Andrew chimes in that it's a lot like ice skating. I never could get the hang of that, either. Well, ice saktings like hockey. I start off on the same phrase, but I think Andrea finishes it for me. I'm not sure that happened, really, or if my memory's just made it up because I don't quite remember how I ended the sentance, since... Another black car-- this time, a Chevy Malibu, I think-- puills in the access route beside us, and stopps parallel with the girls. The car is angled about 20 degrees to the left of the centerline of the street, whcih lets me see the headlights as well as the tails. the white flourescensce of the Starbucks sign casts very nice highlights and shadows on the car's trim. A kid-- well, he was probably 20-- leans out the window, and starts talking, just on the edge of my ability to discern, with the engine noise and the band and all. "Is he trying to... " Andrew trails off. "... yeah," I reply. Andrea looks up, her face inquistive, but for just a second. She hasn't been paying attention to what was going on, makes a quick assesment of the car, the kid, and the girls, replays the recent dialog in her head, cuts the qinuisitve look, and goes back to what she was doing. I watch, a couple more exchanges between the kid and the girls, back and forth. Something happened, as the kid drives off, and the girls get up and leave. The departure still gives some good shots of different angles of the car. I mention something about how that was so totally two car commercials in a row, and Andrew suggest that I give up on this foreign language junk and go into advertising. I make some sort of spoken noncomittal gesture. We three left at about 9:30-- I don't know what happened to the rest of them-- I stopped hearing bottle rocket reports at about the same time the band got down to business, so I'm not sure how long El Baile and his splinter cell tested their weapons of minor occular discomfort. Whatever. Later that night, I discovered Ostendorf works cashier at Marsh 34. Afterwards, my mom asked why it was that I didn't really particularly like her. I remember stumbling out 'It's the principle of the thing..." So what if she graduated Valedictorian by some stupid technicalities and mere thousandths of GPA difference. So what if Nazzy really and truely deserved the honor. If my thinking's right, which it normally is, an old coin-collecting grocer in my grandparents' little village is dead because some worthless bastard didn't like the fact he wasn't white. What the hell am I doing, being a jerk about some pathetic crap like getting a blue ribbon and a two minute speech instead of somebody else? Individual Post | Comments (0) 00:23 0306.23 Action Abe, Bomb Squad Rabbi What up. No, that title doesn't have anything to do with anything. So, it's been several days since I blogged, and I can't really remember when that was or what exactly happened, so I write down what I remember and also make stuff up. The last blog appears to have been written the Saturday before last, I'll start with the following Sunday, which was mainly filled with Church and sleeping. I think it was Father's Day or something, so the family and I went to Logan's Steakhizzouse or some crap like that. After sleeping, I believe I proceeded over to the Winter Wonderland where I and assorted other college-aged folks as well as Speed Racer played ultimate frisbee. Ah! Speed! No! That was fun. Andrea took the time to show me ye olde 300-level college spanish texbook, which looked fairly easy. I wonder what she's majoring in, sorta. Probably teaching or Spanish or teaching Spanish, but I don't know if I'd put 'getting married' by her or not. Wait, what kind of idiom was that I just used? Come to think of it, I can't even remember if 'put something by' means affirmative or negative of the something, so I'm adding an 'or not'. I just bet the reader loves this stupid stream-of-consciousness crap. Ha ha ha. So, I think on Monday I commandeered a Soyuz capsule and battled outer space pirate aliens in the name of Truth, Justice, Glastnost and Perestroika. Or maybe I just banged my shoes on tables and shouted random threats at representatives of other world powers. I can't really rememeber. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent practicing saying 'Senator, to the best of my ability, I do not recall' in the most convincing manner possible. Trust me. Thursday? Senator, to the best of my ability, I do not recall. Well, Friday night, at Kaya, they still got love, and the Sharkbar was poppin' like it's a night club. Actually, I think I contemplated calling people up and doing something on Friday, but never did. Yesterday, Saturday, I swam, and swam and swam. The dorks fixed whatever was broken with the pool, so you know. I'll probably be partying over here sometime soon. So, uh, today, church was, uh, um, uh, interesting? I don't know if I can even use that word anymore. I'm so glad I won't have to attend there in a few months, it is so incredibly horribly screwed up. Afterwards, I went home, and slept, or something. Uncle Jim then came over, and we tried to get the router to run like it used to, but we're going to have to talk the the ISP's sysadmin or something because it's beyond our ability on this side to un-screw-up. Now with the play-by-play out of the way, I can get at the commentary, or whatever, if the reader is still, uh reading. I'm getting in to this whole going to college thing. It's too bad I'm not able to go to Germany and stuff, but, you know. I don't really care, the more I think about it. And it's not as if I ever wear shorts ever anyhow, so it's not like Harding's silly repressive ruling regime of "no shorts before 2 PM for reasons we will say have nothing to do with perfectly justafiable reasons such as 'modesty' or 'maintaining a more formal learning environment' or 'we're a private university and you don't have to come here-- from our perspective, at least-- so we can have whatever rules we want as long as they aren't brazenly illegal' because the people who have eventually become the rules committee weren't the ones who made the rules and are too afraid of getting in stupid flawed-logic arguments with J. Random Student than being simple, concise, and justified. So, if you read the comments for the last blog, the Purple Pimpin' Chariot de Mathhaeus Flavius Doggimus Maximus has exploded a piston rod, but will recieve a replacement V8 Interceptor engine for about 2 grand. Not to be excessively pompus, but I was pleasantly suprised at my ability to almost completely translate a letter written in Spanish to English quickly without the aid of a dictionary. Of course, I needed it a little, but it was only for some phrases that didn't actually add to the meaning of the letter so much as they were there to make it flow well. I guess it pays more than the $25.00 to test off as the 3rd best top-level Spanish high school student in the state. Also, as it seems I've hinted at in this whatever, I'm an uninformed incompetent lamer. Finally, the title of this and most, if not all, of the struck-through text comes to you courtesy of Sealab 2021 and Space Ghost: Coast to Coast. I'm not that random. Oh, I forgot the BONUS: Here's some funny quotes from bash.org All of these are clean, but not everything there is, so be warned if you're not into that. one two three four five six Individual Post | Comments (0) 23:59 0306.14 Blah blah college blah Hahahaha, daily blog entries? Yeah, that'd work, if I were on a bloody routine of some sort. So, it was decided some how or another that El Baile and myself, as well as our Maternal Units would go down to register for college in the new Range Rover on Wednesday. IN A QUOAH-TAH OF A MAI-LL, TAKE THE SECOND TUHNING ON THE RAIGHT. In other words, the Rover's crazy British GPS Naivigation man got us there pretty effieintly although we did occasionally have to suffer through reports of "YOU AH LEAVING THE REGISTAHD ROAD NETWORK." 90% directions correctness and 95% accurate maps are pretty darn good for driving assistance in my book, though. So, on the way down there, we stopped at Wendy's in some forsaken place in Illinois for lunch (#2 meal with a coke), and "Marshall's: Home of Throwed [sic] Rolls" for dinner. At least, I think it's Marshall's. Well, whatever it is, the food is darn good, the rolls are indeed We stayed that night in the Best Western Country Haven Inn on Rand Street, Dan and I in one room, the moms in the other. Good beds, decent rooms. didn't really do anything that night, except watch people make really crapulent paddle boats on an American Junkyard Wars, which always suck compared to the ones in Britain. Not to mention that they abuse Anglicisms in hopes of making it seem like it's still the original show, like calling alittle rear-wheel drive Suzuki proto-SUV a 'Four wheel drive' along with other things, such as using 'whilst' and 'amongst' entirely too much. Oh wells. AFTER THE PARTY IT'S THE WAFFLE HOUSE, IF YOU'VE EVER BEEN HERE YOU KNOW WHAT I'M TALIKING ABOUT -- WHERE PEOPLE DON'T DANCE, ALL THEY DO IS... uh, use rap lyrics in their blogs. So, uh, anyhow, we went to the Waffle House and had some breakfast. Pretty danged tasty. I'll have to eat there on Saturdays or somesuch. It was pretty good. After that, El Baile and I spent the afternoon getting slips of paper and listening to old people and the like. During this afternoon into evening, as is the norm, my best friend apparently met half a dozen cute girls while I was doing exiting things like "trying to get my mailbox to open" and "talking to teachers". You know how I do. We did meet up with the Megs and Kelly sometime during that afternoon, as they came in from Civitas Cincinnatis for who knows what reason. OH! Since this pargraph already has the whole 'Our Bennyfactor tries to use his George Washington looks to come off as Hip-hop' vibe anyhow, I might as well mention that The for of us pusedo-college students rolled out and bumped in the Range Rovah to get our dorm rooms for our overnight stay. Dog, we were ballin' it up in that phat ride, eventhough we realized that we'd never be able to do that again. Which, of course, made it all the more fun. I roomed with a nice fellow from Northern Arkansas who I later found would be in my elementary French class. As well a being nice and pursuing a degree in Computer Science, Young Mr. Carter shares my interests in the ever important field of World Domination (see last blog entry). I feel this may well have been the beginning of a most excellent friendship. On Friday, among other things, I registered for classes. I'm taking 17 hours worth of crap first semester. If I can remember off the top of my head, it's two honors gen ed equivs-- hnrs 201 & 202 (MWF 4 hrs total), Spanish 303 Grammar (MWF 3 hrs), Elementary French 102 (MTuWThF 4 hrs), Kineseology 101 (Tu 2 hrs), and PolSci 203 (MWF 3 hrs). That looks right, because it comes out to 17. And none of those classes start until 9:45. HOO-HAH. We travelled to Marion, Ill Freitagnachmittag, because we didn't want to get home at 1AMish. On the way back through Missouri, the bugs were even worse than before. The windshield was completely plastered. We eventually pulled into an amoco somewhere and Dan and I to the window washer instruments to it during a refueling. We never actually saw the vehicle dirty from the outside when we got to We stayed in a Drury Inn, because there was no room at the Hampton. I've never been in a Drury Inn before, and never heard anything about them, but I see them from time to time, and the room was quite nice, eventhough the bed was somewhat hard. Dan said I talked in my sleep that night, but I cut him off before he said about what. Hopefully it was completely incoherent. Wegot back at about 1PM today, and I summarily slept the entire afternoon. BONUS Here's excepts from a convo with the Nazz from a few minutes ago, which I found enjoyable. [me] (23:24:16): Hi there [him] (23:35:23): Hello [me] (23:35:32): You been to caltech yet? [him] (23:38:39): Yeah [him] (23:38:51): I have decided to go there. [me] (23:39:06): I was going to ask how it was, but I think that answers it! [him] (23:40:11): It was nice. [him] (23:40:22): 4x the size of Harvard. [him] (23:40:32): "Pahk fo cahs in Caltech yahd!" [me] (23:41:38): More like "Dude, where's my car? Oh yeah, it's in the Caltech lot! Surf's up!" [him] (23:42:20): heh [me] (23:42:22): Not that people at caltech are surfer dorks, but at the same time most people that attend Harvard don't speak Bostonese... [him] (23:42:27): Say... [him] (23:42:37): if you come visit, we could go to The Price is Right ;) [me] (23:42:44): HOORJ [him] (23:42:49): Then you could meet Bob Barker and get the colors changed back. [me] (23:42:52): DUDE I'M SO VISITING YOU ALL THE TIME [him] (23:43:07): lol [me] (23:43:18): You can like, come to Arkansas and, uh, look at the trees, or something. [him] (23:43:32): People in California are scared to death of cancer. [me] (23:43:42): OH NO! CANCEEER [him] (23:43:49): let me pull something up I wrote earlier on that ... [him] (23:45:01): 1 - Hardee's, a burger fast-food chain across the nation, is apparently called Carl's Jr. in LA 2 - People in California are scared to death of cancer. The first warning we saw was on a cigarette ad, so that was understandable. "This product contains chemicals that are known to the State of California to cause cancer." Then we saw it on lead crystal (glasswear that contains ~20% lead). Understandable, but a bit paranoid. Then we saw it on bags of L.A. beach sand. "This sand contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer." [me] (23:46:21): XD [me] (23:46:48): THIS MESSAGE IS KNOWN TO THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO CONTAIN CAPITALS [him] (23:46:54): Heh. [me] (23:47:03): It's like "Big Brother knows this is bad"... [him] (23:47:33): As I said, they're environmental bent has get them paranoid about carcinogens. [him] (23:47:38): *their [me] (23:47:49): Well, that's one thing, but the wording is another. [him] (23:48:08): The wording is, as you said, BB. [me] (23:49:16): "California State Law requires this product to be labeled as containing carcinogens (cancer causing agents)." would be vastly more acceptable. [him] (23:49:25): "Welcome to DisneyLand! The happiest place on Earth!" This theme park is known to the State of California to operate heavy machinery that could result in injury or loss of life. [me] (23:51:44): Because, you know, it's known to more people than the STADIUS CALIFORNIENSIS that the thing is carcinogenic. It's not like they're some sort of magical priesthood that has Divine Knoweldge of what is and what isn't bad for their loyal subjects. Oh, wait, they actually think that. Individual Post | Comments (2) |