jotsheet

i talked about my SWET project today in Research Methods, and to my interest (and possibly dismay), my project generated about 3x the discussion any other did. i guess that mean it’s interesting, or controversial, but probably both.

tonight it was to Flat Top with Pri, Ben, and later Ben’s bud Dale. now there’s a restaurant that’s got a coupla things figured out: good food, all-you-can-eat, and TVs in the restuarant. after that, over to Ryan/jephreee/Emma/Tempe’s place for Ryan’s b-day. hrm. haven’t done this in a while, but it ain’t bad. stop when it’s time.

school is actually pretty close to being done. although my summer is basically set up, i’m still somehow still in the “idea” stage of it. i mean, it’s doesn’t seem like it’s coming up. life will be quite different, of course. first in Champaign to help my sis with her dissertation, then to BA for SWET stuff, then back to Champaign, then up to Evanston to make some money prior to senior year. yep, that’s the plan.

for you, Mary Jones…

take these hands ane run along with me
doing this i know would set us free
only if you weren’t such a fucking tease
somehow you’d always drag me to my knees
this disease i call it abstinence

the only one who knows
the only one who knows
the only one who
[12 rods — “red”]

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my ankle hurts. Ben, Jen “Dreamin’ One” Kerner, and i went to SPAC, and in the course of playing some basketball, i turned my left ankle. my left foot area is in bad shape. i had already hurt it when running (i have flat feet, boo hoo). oh, and i played basketball at SPAC yesterday, too; Jitim Young was there, and i think he kept looking at me kind of funny, perhaps because of my Illini t-shirt. oh well. i guarded this 6′2, 210 lb. black strong safety-ish football player. it didn’t go so well.

did you know that Ben’s site is the first result on Google when you search for “mill arendt argue?” impressive, huh? Ben sure thinks so, hahah. oh, and try searching for “ben cherry” and see if it comes up in the first 10 pages. (ok, it’s page 3, cut ‘im some slack…)

hey Mary and Adele: she’s putting you to shame, girls. get a move-on.

i know i’ve blogged about this before, but i feel like i can’t emphasize it enough. Northwestern has two schools: north and south. sure, there are “pockets of resistance” (e.g. the sorority quads and Allison down south), but i think that an incredible amount of one’s experience at NU is determined by where one lives as a freshman (and likely sophomore). since i’ve been going to SPAC a lot in the past month or two, i come in contact with more north campus kids. they seem like they don’t belong at NU — at least the NU that i know. it’s the same way i feel when i walk around the frat quad; it’s interesting, sure, but it’s like taking a field trip to UW or something. i really think that NU has to have one of the more defined splits of any school out there. we’re big enough so that north and south can each have their own “culture,” yet not so big that the culture becomes a amorphous conglomeration of individual groups (a la Illinois).

perhaps the biggest problem with this split is the eagerness of members on each side to drive their differences to extremes. up north, you’ve got the state school-wanna frat guys, as gorgeously described by Ben. these kids are the WORST. i just want to smack the shit out of them and send them crying back to their Nissan Pathfinders. oh well.

on the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got the holier-than-thou artsy types. lotta these kids in Chapin, and they seem to be carrying on a tradition. on Dillo Day a few days ago, some Chapinos from 20 years ago came back for a reunion, and in the course of talking to them, it was quite easy to discern that they still had a raw disdain, even malevolence, for the preppy Greek kids. i guess old grudges die hard. the artsy types aren’t cooler than you the way the up-north kids are; they’re just more cultured.

anyhow, i don’t think i fit into either stereotype. of course, most kids here don’t, and i probably try to squeeze more of them than i should into those two boxes. oh well, it’s easier that way. but the moral of the story? choose your freshman dorm wisely!

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sooooo frustrating today at work. ok. here’s the deal: if you have a box on which Web pages are hosted, why the hell make it so security-minded that it’s damn near impossible to get the HTML files off the account? jeeeez. damn footer.

ugh. what am i supposed to do in Philosophy to get an A on one of these tests? i don’t mind getting a subpar grade if i write a bad essay, but it’s fuggin frustrating to not know how to get a good grade. it’s like a goddamn enigma. if you’re in a bio class, for example, at least it’s clear what you have to know.

Ben and i looked at an apartment today, incidentally in the same building where my girlfriend lives. it was a pit. the carpet was dirty, the floor in the kitchen was messed up, and everything was greasy. the janitor was appalled, not having seen the place in a year. in a classically bloggable moment, he informed Ben and me in an Italian accent, “i raise pigs in the old country. they keep place cleaner than this!”

yeah, so a while back, i said i’d drop a Top 10 Songs list here. there’s no way i can do an All-Time Top 10 Songs — that’d be far too hard. but here’s a List of Damn Good Rock Songs (defining “rock” in a non-80’s, non-pop, non-too-techno, not-alt-country sense) in a no particular order:

1. Porno for Pyros — “Pets”
2. Guns ‘n Roses — “Live and Let Die”
3. Van Halen — “Jump”
4. U2 — “Beautiful Day”
5. Aerosmith with Run DMC — “Walk This Way”
6. Korn — “Blind”
7. Metallica — “One”
8. Aerosmith — “Janie’s Got a Gun”
9. Tom Petty — “Free Fallin”
10. The Urge — “Jump Right In”
11. Buffalo Tom — “Sodajerk”
12. Cracker — “Another Song about the Rain”
13. Van Halen — “Hot for Teacher”
14. Pink Floyd — “Money”
15. Unwritten Law — “Seein’ Red”
16. Metallica — “For Whom the Bells Tolls”
17. Hum — “Pewter”
18. The Rolling Stones — “Under My Thumb”
19. Pavement — “Cut Your Hair”
20. Fury in the Slaughterhouse — “Every Generation’s Got Its Own Disease”
21. Dig — “Believe”
22. Hum — “Iron Clad Lou”
23. Korn — “Shoots and Ladders”
24. Clutch — “Spacegrass”
25. Oasis — “Live Forever”
26. Hum — “I Hate It Too”
27. Nine Inch Nails — “Piggy”
28. Cracker — “Low”
29. The Rolling Stones — “Start Me Up”

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something about this story in the Daily about Dillo Day really irks me. maybe it’s the gleeful, irresponsible attitude from a “news source” about underage drinking and stealing things. i just it just reeks of naivete. on the one hand, i really like the relaxed atmosphere of Dillo Day, but i can’t stand the rah-rah-let’s-get-fucked-up attitude. just a buncha hypes.

i have located the Holy Grail of breakfast cereals. it is here. go to your local grocery store and taste a piece of heaven.

as much as i dislike arrogant academics, i correspondingly appreciate my down-to-Earth teachers. Tim Earle is a great example. in class, after a girl gave the answer he wanted, he deadpanned, “i could hug you.” ya gotta like that in an NU prof.

thanks to Joe Motto for writing an even better letter to the editor than i did in response to that stupid editorial a few days back in the Daily (see here for more).

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underscorebleach: this has been a good weekend
underscorebleach: i wish more NU weekends were like this
underscorebleach: i feel like a real college student
MrsParker6767: eh, i was kind of annoyed actually

underscorebleach: well, that’s part of the fun!

i convinced Margaret, Mary’s adorable sister, to get a weblog. tell her to change the font to verdana.

i did some neato nerdy things with Apache URL Rewriting today. basically, even though the file doesn’t exist, if you attempt to access http://underscorebleach.net/jotsheet, it will automatically toss ya over to http://underscorebleach.net/content/jotsheet/. the same goes for all of the subdirectories of /content/. i like to keep all of my HTML in one directory, CSS in another, and SSIs in a third. most people don’t do it this way, though, but if someone thinks i use top-level directories to organize my content (i.e. /jotsheet/ for this page), then they’ll still get to the right place. in actuality, though, i only did this because i like cutesy tricks like this. if you’re a geek, you could take a look at the Apache URL Rewriting Guide.

this weekend has done for my mind what taking a bath does for my body.

stretched across the sky

it felt good, i mean good today, just relaxed, easy, heart warm, oxygen high. i got sick of reading archaeology at the Library, so i walked over to the source of the bass rumbling throughout campus. it was this party at the Lakefill put on by CaribNation, and i was just about the only white guy around. no big deal, though. i’m black on the inside. anyway, it was a festival of Caribbean culture. i got there toward the end, in the middle of the karaoke (Beenie Man, anyone?), and they had a dance contest too (i heard the word “rudeboy” in actual usage). it was a trip, gotta tell ya. and the accents — it’s like English with a swirl, or something. but it was good.

i walked back to the Library and looked over the Lakefill toward the big lake. a huge rainbow stretched across the sky, visible on both sides, clear enough that i could almost pick out the violet. i knew things were good. the last time i saw a rainbow like that, i was 9 years old and running around in Disneyworld’s Magic Kingdom. (when we were in Epcot, i got separated from my family for four hours, but that’s another story.)

i think i have some reserves in the tank now. by that, i guess i mean that bad things could happen, and i’d still be ok. yeah, it’s good.

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i woke up feeling not-so-hot, but perhaps not as bad as one would expect. i was still kind of drunk and dizzy, but after eating some cereal and drinking water, i was feeling about 85%. it was a good day to veg out, so i turned on the tube and watched a good deal of the Indy 500. auto racing is pretty boring, but it’s relaxing in a way, kind of like baseball. it’s the type of thing i’ll watch once in a while.

it feels really nice to have a relaxing weekend, one where i don’t have to just think about the work to do for the week ahead. i haven’t thought about this summer at all, but it’ll be good to have a break from school, because i’ve worked hard this year. especially this quarter, i’ve done a good job of making it class, doing my reading, and turning out quality papers. i’ve half-assed some things, sure, but overall, i’m happy with it. this summer, i’ll have the task of helping my sis with her dissertation, which i think has the real potential to be rewarding.

anna marie is hassling the shit out of me to stop blogging. she keeps whining about being bored. bye now!

we fought and made up. i enjoyed the making up/out part much more than the fighting part. and yes, i’m too proud of myself at this point.

part three: who the hell is this guy? a dirty Scientologist ruining my good name!

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the Daily printed my two cents, giving it the heading of “Quotas are not solution to blacks’ underrepresenation.” it was in response to this piece of shit editorial written yesterday by a coupla liberal loonies. actually, the Daily edited my letter pretty heavily; here’s the original version.

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