jotsheet

Cleaning house

“The Role of Ritual in the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement.” 40 pages. 9 bound copies. I’m turning that biznitch in tomorrow. I’d like to win the Oswald Werner prize for the best undergrad thesis in anthro at NU, but we’ll see. At this point, I’m quite happy with the paper. It can stand on its own. If they don’t like it, fuck ‘em!

Writing my thesis was ultimately a rewarding and informative experience. I think the amount I learned in the process of researching was roughly equal to that of all of my anthropology classes put together. So am I glad that a senior thesis was a graduation requirement in the department? Damn right. I almost feel bad for the kids in other majors that don’t write a thesis because I think they can slide through their undergrad without really understanding their field (or at least a small subfield within it) very well.

Hey, by the way: now that I’m done with my thesis, what do I do with my life?

I’m feeling strangely homesick at the moment. I’m not sure why, but maybe this is the typical after-college feeling that some kids have. They go off to college after high school wanting only to get away, but after four years out of the house, they want to come back. I don’t think that’s exactly it, but I guess I can’t completely escape the archetype of the typical college student, eh?

Mm, more geeky website stuff. Been doing a lot of that lately. Check it:

• This biznitch will actually display in Netscape 4.x now! By using “@import” to get my styles instead of <LINK>, I successfully shielded that beastly program from all of my scary CSS.
• Pages print better now. I accomplished this via the “@media print” technique. Check it out in Print Preview — you’ll see that the page is simplified and re-colored for printing, and menus are hidden. These styles are also hidden from Netscape 4.x.
• You can easily navigate to the previous and next months of the jotsheet when on any month’s jotsheet. The javascript for this took me too long to write because I’m stupid, but it’s finished now.

Oh, and one piece of advice: Mary Jones, I think we all know that it’d be best for you to keep the ol’ yapper shut. Ask Anne: I have a bit of material on you. Baby, it’d just be like the U.S. and Iraq.

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Hi. I fixed up the website a bit, but you probably didn’t notice. Actually, many of the revisions are based on reading I did for my job (the best of which was Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think!), so hopefully you’ll find the layout more intuitive and more aesthetically pleasing. If you’re in Mozilla or Opera (all 3 of you), you’ll notice a new navbar at the top. The rest of you won’t.

I spent Friday through Monday at home for Easter and just relaxed. It was a good relax, not a get-frustrated-because-you’re-doing-nothing relax. Easter was of the typical family sort, with a candy hunt in the morning and a big dinner in the early afternoon. I re-coded my site in betwitxt.

I do wish Easter held a bit more meaning for me. My family does the get-together part of it well, but we completely fail on the religious side. We don’t go to church. We don’t mention that Easter is a holiday because it commemorates the Crucifixion. And I’d say that’s a rather hefty oversight. Some of our failure undoubtedly stems from the mix of religious beliefs in my family and the awkwardness that would result from some of us going off to church while others stayed home, but I still think we could do it better. Even as a believing Christian, Easter holds little meaning for me, because the only thing I associated with it as a kid was candy. It’s really disappointing.

On the other hand, at least the media hasn’t gotten ahold of it like they’ve whored out Christmas. It has to be one of the least holdouts.

• A thought: maybe I’m actually becoming an adult.
• A geeky computer hint: Hit ALT-Home in IE/Netscape/Mozilla to go to your home page

My CD player could beat up your CD player

I got my MP3 CD player (finally!) from UPS, and believe me, it’s as sexy as advertised. Strangely enough, despite the fact that I’m a dirty geek, I don’t have many cute gadgets. Well, this one is the cutest I’ve got.

I’m almost done with this thesis. I still have to meet tomorrow with my main advisor, Bill Murphy, to get his comments on my rough draft, but I don’t plan to drastically change anything. My goal now is to pare it down a bit and refocus it somewhat around the central thesis. I’m close, though, and I can feel it. It’ll be good to complete it. It’s been a worthwhile project.

We were bored, there was nothing going on
Might as well stay at home and drink until we pass out again
Then drink some more when the morning comes
Memphis was sinking into the Mississippi
We were doing our best just to ride it down
Till the night G.G. Allin came to town.
“Honey, I dont believe this,”
The old man at Ferguson’s Cafe kept saying to his wife.
As he read aloud The Memphis Star and their account of what went down that night,
“It says He took a shit on the stage and started throwing it into the crowd
But He was gone before the cops could come and shut him down.”
Gone before the shit came down
The Night G.G. Allin Came to Town.

[The Drive-By Truckers — “The Night G.G. Allin Came to Town”]

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A little over a week ago, my mom calls me and tells me the computer isn’t working. It started giving off a “burning smell” (not good), so my mom shut it off and waited for me to come home. When I arrived and turned it on, it didn’t boot, so I gave the tech support folks a call.
(more…)

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With the combat stages of the Gulf War II now virtually over and the rebuilding/reenvisioning process begun, I’d like to offer a few thoughts about this conflict and the lessons it’s taught me.

History will call this war just. Time can only reveal more horrific atrocities committed by the regime of Saddam Hussein. His was a government that did not deserve to rule. He was a man that deserved to die for his crimes–and likely has.

Cynics, whiners, antiwar protesters and anti-American reactionaries have crowed endlessly about how this was not a war of liberation. I agree, but only to a degree. It was not a war only of liberation, but also one of self-interest. What the aforementioned motley crew cannot seem to fathom is that in the world of realpolitik, the cold facts of national self-interest and the warm, fuzzy facts of humanitarian interest can be married in a single objective. Here is a perfect example of such a union. To point to other repressive regimes around the world and ask why we have not ousted their governments is to deny the true nature of the way politics is practiced. It is naive.

I have also learned something about Europe in the course of this debate. Europe, masquerading throughout the war as the arbiters of morality, behaved like selfish 10 year-olds. Their interests were not humane. Their goal was not the enforcement of international law. Their motivations were selfish, pure and simple. Germany: Schroeder wants to win an election, so he opposes the war. France: Chirac is bosom buddies with Saddam and wants to protect tens of billions of economic interests in Iraq, so he opposes the war. Russia: Putin gets intel from Iraq, plus he’s got economic interests there too. That, my friends, is selfishness.

History will call this war just. It was a military campaign beyond compare. All of the worrywarts and lefties in the media are eating crow as I write this. They had the gall to declare that the U.S. military campaign was “failing” (hahah, bye bye Peter Arnett!) when we paused outside Baghdad. And let me toss out a number: 73 percent. That’s Dubya’s approval rating.

Sorry kids, but video of jubilant Iraqis doesn’t lie. Put that in your peace pipe and smoke it.

>> This is how 50 Cent saw the war.

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What a glorious day. High of 85? Are you kidding me? Somehow hopped right over spring and went right to summer.

On a whim, I decided to take a drive around Kenilworth and Winnetka today. Wow. People there are loaded. Now as a red-blooded Republican, I should not in any way attach negative connotations to wealth, but I’m afraid I do. For some reason, I sneer at the multimillion dollar houses with well-manicured laws. I sneer at New Trier High School with its students’ Range Rovers, Jeeps, and Hummers parked on neighboring streets. I sneer at fit, trim, thirtysomething wives walking purebred dogs at 1:30 in the afternoon. I shouldn’t, but I do.

Why? Why do I irrationally dislike these people and their wealth? Some if not most, of them deserve to be rich. Wealthy people do not deserve to be the object of disdain. Perhaps my sneers are a remnant of my liberal education and my professors’ collective and pathetic desire for redistribution of wealth and other long-dead Marxist ideals. I don’t know. But I hate those New Trier kids. Maybe it’s because I think that they think they’re entitled and “above the law” and all that. Ubdoubtedly some of them do hold that attitude. I should probably check my prejudices of rich people at the door, though. After all, I plan to be rich in not tooo long!

Anyhow, not wanting to spend this lovely day cooped up in the apartment, I walked down to Potbelly’s with Anne and Adele for a milkshake. It was quite nice, just relaxing outside and enjoying the weather for an hour or so. It was easygoing, undramatic, and fairly spontaneous–the way things should be with the CM but never are anymore.

AND. Speaking of the CM. Mary Jones, you need a fucking lecture. No one else will give it to you, so I will. Listen the fuck up.

You do not own Monday night, thus you cannot capriciously “cancel” it. Get a fucking clue. Do not reply that you always organize it, because you don’t. You screw up all the time. You get “tired.” You reneg on commitments so you can go do things with Mark. Case in point: LAST FUCKING NIGHT. If you hadn’t fucked it up, Adele and Nick wouldn’t have been stuck at Gio’s alone, so grow up.

You are not the center of attention. You are not the collective godmother of this social group. If you are, we should all be turned over to DCFS because you’re doing a horrible goddamn job. Stop your passive-aggressive bullshit. Stop whining about how no one calls you to do things when you consistently make it difficult to do things with you by (1) devoting all your time to M. Roberts, (2) getting “tired” and other lame excuses like that, or (3) flat-out rejecting people’s social invitations (ahem).

You need to grow up a little bit. Thanks.

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WHEW! Turned in a draft of my thesis today to my two advisors and e-mailed a copy to Mom, Dad, Sis, and my uncle. I’m actually pretty happy with it. I really think it’s coming along, but then again, it’s quite hard to judge something dispassionately when you’ve been working on it a long time. I’m eager to get feedback. For now, though, I do feel a pretty solid sense of accomplishment.

I also completed a report reviewing a redesign of one of the Tribune’s websites, Zap2It, and they seem pleased with the product. The job is going well, and I’m happy about the progress I’ve made in it so far. I even get to pretend that I’m a real-life downtown employee! It’s fun to role play.

I bought the iRiver SlimX 350 MP3 CD player. It’s gorgeous. I want to make love to it. And you’re jealous.

Mm, and as a small addendum. SInce it’s trailed off without fanfare, I’m declaring the final match in BLOGWARS™ between Mary and myself to be a die, if only because I don’t care enough to decide now. :)

Oh, one more thing. Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s cutesy lil foreign correspondent du jour, needs to drop that fucking accent. She went to the University of Rhode Island ferchristsake. URI? Talk like an American, biatch.

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I need a full-time job.
I need a girlfriend (but not really).
I need to get more done each day (yes really).
I need to redesign my website (but not really).
I need to find some new music to listen to.

So Mary: if I “overcompensate,” perhaps I am then quite similar to ye-of-false-boob-bravado?

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