LA schools are in the midst of a two-week spring break. Which means I am in the middle of spring break as well. Hence the lapse in entries.
I'm currently in Colorado visiting a friend. Some highlights:
-On Sunday I tried snowboarding for the first time. Things did not go well. It's Wednesday now and it still hurts to sit down, move my arms, stand up, and walk. By the end of the day Sunday I had learned to make a few consecutive turns between concussions, but at the cost of my physical well-being and self-esteem.
-On a brighter note, there's a long list of recent movies that I haven't seen that people yell at me for not having seen, and I saw 6 of them in the last 4 days:
Walk the Line- Excellent. It was an A- to Ray's B. I'd marry Reese Witherspoon right here and right now.
Memoirs of a Geisha- Also very good. Not since The Joy Luck Club have I enjoyed an Asian movie this much (these are the only two Asian movies I've seen). And Ziyi Zhang is delectable.
Anchorman- I found it stupid, along the lines of Dumb and Dumber, a movie which I hate. But I'll also acknowledge that it could be one of those absurd movies that grows on you after seeing it more than once, like Zoolander, a movie which I liked after having seen it twice. The "all the characters are absurd" approach is very risky, and it has to be really funny to work. Come to think of it, I hated Bewitched, and I thought Old School was overrated (people refuse to admit that this movie wasn't that great)-- I'm realizing that maybe I just don't think Will Ferrell is that funny.
Team America- They managed to make fun of almost everything-- liberals, conservatives, America, foreigners, terrorists, Hollywood-- and it was all funny. And Kim Jong Il was a painfully funny character.
The Incredibles- I really loved this movie. Just great all around. Amazing animation, great plot, good characters.
Forty-Year-Old Virgin- This was solid. Unlike the absurd characters in Anchorman, these characters were almost real people, and it made me laugh a bunch of times. This is the first time I've liked Steve Carrol in anything. Although I'll never forgive the guy in the movie who was also the guy in Clueless, after my immense, burning jealousy when Cher fell for him at the end.
-On Monday I went to a casino with my friend to play poker, somewhere in the middle of rural Colorado. I know "Ski-Town Colorado", and I know "Denver Colorado", but my experience with "The Rest of Colorado" is limited. In The Rest of Colorado, everyone is white, and there is 1 Jew for every 200,000 guns. Also, don't talk about abortion in front of The Rest of Colorado.
-Speaking of which, http://entertainment.tv.yahoo.com/entnews/ap/20060328/114359178000.html
-Finally, I win two of my four pools if LSU wins on Saturday. And on that note, this tournament has been pure joy from beginning to end.
Thursday
And here it is. Unabridged. My Thursday:
11:37- After waiting in line at the post office (a midday gathering spot for grumpy, mundane adults), I got to the front only to be told to go fill out a form. After filling out the form I went back to the front of the line to grab the next spot. This did not please the grumpy, mundane adults in the line. And just like that, the post office was an awkward place to be. When I finally left, I didn't have time to get lunch as I had planned, so I went into a nearby Krispy Kreme. It was my first time in a Krispy Kreme. My initial observation was that the people working there were all quite fat. I ordered a donut and took a bite. Suddenly the fatness made perfect sense-- it was the most delicious food in the world. At that moment, the Krispy Kreme glazed donut catapulted up and over my top 7 bites of food list (an entry somewhere down below). I'm still reeling from the sheer deliciousness that occurred. It took me 24 and a half years, but I finally tasted the best food that exists.
11:58- I then hurried to my office to meet my 12:00 student, who is pretty sure she's starring in Clueless at all times. She talks exactly like the girls in Clueless. Today she was unusually stressed out because her upcoming spring break would be with her family on a ranch, where "there's, like, no shopping at all."
2:00- Cher heads out, and my next student, a USC junior, comes in, possibly stoned. He is in an a cappella group at USC and had brought a recording of their last concert. He plays me the song where he has the solo. "Fix you" by Coldplay. A number of Coldplay songs make me want to cry/die/cuddle with someone, and Fix You is the worst. I held it together until the chorus, when I made him turn it off immediately, because I was going to either have to cuddle with someone in the next 5 seconds, or start crying, and doing either of these things with my student would have been uncomfortable for both of us.
8:00- I head to Sushi with a friend, only to realize that the waiter is the first person I have ever come into contact with who has both an Asian accent and a lisp. A shocking sound.
8:04- I notice Marwan, the terrorist from 24 last season, sitting at the table next to me. Eating sushi. No nerve gas. No nuclear weapon. Not even a gun. Just sushi. Still, I was uneasy.
11:30- After going the whole day without finding out what happened in the NCAA games, I idiotically open up ESPN.com without thinking about it and see J.J Redick looking like one of the sick people in Outbreak. So with that game ruined, I immediately turned away, and went to the TV to at least watch the two late games, which I had also TiVo'd. I watched the last half of the Gonzaga-UCLA game, and to my dismay, the TiVo cut off with a few minutes left in that game and the WV-Texas game, and I had been too stupid to TiVo the following show. So I went to ESPN.com and opened the lead article, which professes that the late games had the best two endings in the tournament so far. Why.
12:15- While flipping from the TiVo'd game to ESPN (to try to catch the highlights), I happen upon a Girls Gone Wild ad. With absolutely no intention of stopping there, I sat there with the remote in my hand and my arm extended toward the TV, paralyzed, and watched the ad for 5 full minutes, the whole time with my arm extended and finger on the channel button. Sometime in the 6th minute, I found the strength to press the channel button and continue my route to Sportscenter. I got there to hear them talk about how ridiculously great the endings of the two late games were, and turned the TV off.
On a hopeful note, my final four in most of my pools is LSU, UCLA, UConn, and Villanova.
11:37- After waiting in line at the post office (a midday gathering spot for grumpy, mundane adults), I got to the front only to be told to go fill out a form. After filling out the form I went back to the front of the line to grab the next spot. This did not please the grumpy, mundane adults in the line. And just like that, the post office was an awkward place to be. When I finally left, I didn't have time to get lunch as I had planned, so I went into a nearby Krispy Kreme. It was my first time in a Krispy Kreme. My initial observation was that the people working there were all quite fat. I ordered a donut and took a bite. Suddenly the fatness made perfect sense-- it was the most delicious food in the world. At that moment, the Krispy Kreme glazed donut catapulted up and over my top 7 bites of food list (an entry somewhere down below). I'm still reeling from the sheer deliciousness that occurred. It took me 24 and a half years, but I finally tasted the best food that exists.
11:58- I then hurried to my office to meet my 12:00 student, who is pretty sure she's starring in Clueless at all times. She talks exactly like the girls in Clueless. Today she was unusually stressed out because her upcoming spring break would be with her family on a ranch, where "there's, like, no shopping at all."
2:00- Cher heads out, and my next student, a USC junior, comes in, possibly stoned. He is in an a cappella group at USC and had brought a recording of their last concert. He plays me the song where he has the solo. "Fix you" by Coldplay. A number of Coldplay songs make me want to cry/die/cuddle with someone, and Fix You is the worst. I held it together until the chorus, when I made him turn it off immediately, because I was going to either have to cuddle with someone in the next 5 seconds, or start crying, and doing either of these things with my student would have been uncomfortable for both of us.
8:00- I head to Sushi with a friend, only to realize that the waiter is the first person I have ever come into contact with who has both an Asian accent and a lisp. A shocking sound.
8:04- I notice Marwan, the terrorist from 24 last season, sitting at the table next to me. Eating sushi. No nerve gas. No nuclear weapon. Not even a gun. Just sushi. Still, I was uneasy.
11:30- After going the whole day without finding out what happened in the NCAA games, I idiotically open up ESPN.com without thinking about it and see J.J Redick looking like one of the sick people in Outbreak. So with that game ruined, I immediately turned away, and went to the TV to at least watch the two late games, which I had also TiVo'd. I watched the last half of the Gonzaga-UCLA game, and to my dismay, the TiVo cut off with a few minutes left in that game and the WV-Texas game, and I had been too stupid to TiVo the following show. So I went to ESPN.com and opened the lead article, which professes that the late games had the best two endings in the tournament so far. Why.
12:15- While flipping from the TiVo'd game to ESPN (to try to catch the highlights), I happen upon a Girls Gone Wild ad. With absolutely no intention of stopping there, I sat there with the remote in my hand and my arm extended toward the TV, paralyzed, and watched the ad for 5 full minutes, the whole time with my arm extended and finger on the channel button. Sometime in the 6th minute, I found the strength to press the channel button and continue my route to Sportscenter. I got there to hear them talk about how ridiculously great the endings of the two late games were, and turned the TV off.
On a hopeful note, my final four in most of my pools is LSU, UCLA, UConn, and Villanova.
It's Not All Roses
Let's all pause and think about an email chat we're not a part of, that has a lot of our friends on it, whose existence has never crossed our mind.
See, life's not that good.
See, life's not that good.
Four Small Creatures
Seemingly cute, no doubt. But the astute observer will notice much more happening here, beneath the surface.
For example, most people would imagine that the bulk of the humor in this photo is connected to the mouse. But a trained eye like mine would never make such a brash and incorrect assumption. The humor, in fact, lies almost entirely with the bunny.
Look carefully at this bunny. He is troubled. He doesn't fit in with the other three animals, and he knows it. The other animals are probably less than a year old. The bunny, however, seems to be about 40, and has a melancholy look in his eye, as if he's not sure where the years have gone. In body, he's on sitting there with the others, but his mind is elsewhere. He's made some decisions he regrets, and lately, he's been wondering, more and more, "What's the point?". This is certainly not where he pictured himself at 40, being photographed in an amusing photo with three children. No, things have not turned out the way the bunny planned. And that is simply something that he will have to accept.
Others may see 4 cute little animals. I see 3 cute little animals and one troubled, middle-aged animal in crisis.
Five Things I Don't Like
1) These quesadillas.
2) When my students write 1x in an algebra problem instead of just x.
3) When girls wear lipstick and it gets on stuff, like their coffee cups.
4) When I spend 20 minutes on the phone with a USC Teaching Assistant that I found on a list of math TA's on the USC website, and finally hire them as a Calculus tutor and then find out that they teach at the University of South Carolina and that I had been on the South Carolina website.
5) When an ambulance goes by and people stay stopped for 10 seconds after the ambulance has come and gone, even though I'm in a rush.
2) When my students write 1x in an algebra problem instead of just x.
3) When girls wear lipstick and it gets on stuff, like their coffee cups.
4) When I spend 20 minutes on the phone with a USC Teaching Assistant that I found on a list of math TA's on the USC website, and finally hire them as a Calculus tutor and then find out that they teach at the University of South Carolina and that I had been on the South Carolina website.
5) When an ambulance goes by and people stay stopped for 10 seconds after the ambulance has come and gone, even though I'm in a rush.
If You're a Reasonably Cool Person, This Entry is Probably Not for You
I'm in love.
That's the funny thing about life. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, saucy old Cupid decides that frankly, enough is enough, and sends an arrow your way.
And even though my heart is aflutter for a 64-year-old man who can't move, I wouldn't change a damn thing about him.
When I was three I was obsessed with space and dinosaurs. Since then, anytime someone tells me cool things about space and dinosaurs, I can't help but ask myself the question: "Could this person be The One for me?" In middle school, when the teacher would put on some video in class and I'd think nothing of it until suddenly I'd realize that it's a video about space and the narrator would keep saying incredibly cool things about the space, I'd have to ask that question. Could this video be the answer? Maybe the video and I could find a home and settle down. As tempting as these questions have been, I've always found the strength to resist.
It was two nights ago that I started reading A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking, and it was about 2 paragraphs before the love question popped into my head. For example:
--Apparently time is not constant, the single most unintuitive fact in the world. The universe is not composed of space (a normal concept), but rather of space-time (an absurd concept). Once you get beyond the exact gravitational conditions on Earth, time moves at different speeds depending on a number of factors. Gravity makes time move slower. So do high speeds. At extremely high speeds, time moves incredibly slow. If you were able to travel near the speed of light for just a few seconds, you'd return to Earth and decades would have passed. I've been trying to wrap my mind around that, unsuccessfully. Try to imagine getting in some rocket and getting strapped in and noticing a 5-year-old kid standing on the ground outside the rocket. Then you take off, go ridiculously fast for a couple minutes while you read half a page of a magazine, and return to see the 5-year-old, who's now 50, standing there with his kids. Not science fiction-- that would actually happen. It's impossible to actually comprehend this because none of us ever moves fast enough or changes gravity enough to experience anything but absolute, constant time.
--Space-time is warped by matter. Meaning that a star or planet in space changes the space-time around it. Think of a soft foam mat. If you put a pool ball onto it, the ball will sink in, creating a dip in the mat. If you flicked a marble across the mat a few feet from the pool ball, it would move straight, like a piece of rock floating straight through space. But if you flicked it near the dip, it would wrap around the dip and continue in a different direction (like a golfball going around the rim of a hole but not falling in). And if you flicked it too close to the dip, it would probably get sucked in, like a piece of rock falling into the Earth because of gravity.
I won't get into the fact that time actually wraps around stars and planets like the golf ball moving around the rim of a hole and coming off in another direction, because it's too fucking ridiculous. But I'll take it a step back and talk about light. When a planet or star warps space-time, the path of light is affected in the same way the marble's path is affected by the pool ball's "warping" of the surface of the mat. During a solar eclipse (the only time we can see stars on the other side of the sun) constellations that we are used to seeing look wrong and distorted. This is because the presence of the sun is bending the paths of the stars' light on their way to us, making stars look like they're in places they're not. A star that should be on the right will have it's light bent around the sun (like the golf ball) and end up looking like it's on the left.
And the crazy thing is that the bent light is actually moving to us on the fastest path, even though it looks to us like the bent path travels a longer distance than a path straight to our eye. The fastest path from Europe to LA by airplane is up and around Greenland, over the Arctic. The Earth is 3-dimensional, and on a 3D globe that path looks like the correct fastest path. On a 2-dimensional map, though, that path appears to be way out of the way and the straightest path seems to be through the mid-Atlantic Ocean. When we look at light bending around the sun it's like looking at an airplane's 3D path on a 2D scale. Space-time actually exists in 4 dimensions (with time as the 4th dimension). And in the 4 dimensions, the bent light is actually taking the straightest path (like the Arctic is the actual fastest route in 3 dimensions). But since we can only view things in 3 dimensions, the true straightest path will always seem like a longer path to us (like someone who could only view the world as a map and never as a globe).
--The universe is expanding (which is why all galaxies are moving farther away from all other galaxies). One theory suggests that the force of expansion is great enough that it will expand forever, until eventually all the stars have burned out and there's just nothing (miserably depressing). Another theory says the expansion will eventually slow and stop and the universe will begin contracting. This ends with the entire universe contracting into the size of a pinhead, which would undoubtedly be hideously claustrophobic.
I'm going to the kitchen, now, to enjoy a sandwich.
That's the funny thing about life. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, saucy old Cupid decides that frankly, enough is enough, and sends an arrow your way.
And even though my heart is aflutter for a 64-year-old man who can't move, I wouldn't change a damn thing about him.
When I was three I was obsessed with space and dinosaurs. Since then, anytime someone tells me cool things about space and dinosaurs, I can't help but ask myself the question: "Could this person be The One for me?" In middle school, when the teacher would put on some video in class and I'd think nothing of it until suddenly I'd realize that it's a video about space and the narrator would keep saying incredibly cool things about the space, I'd have to ask that question. Could this video be the answer? Maybe the video and I could find a home and settle down. As tempting as these questions have been, I've always found the strength to resist.
It was two nights ago that I started reading A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking, and it was about 2 paragraphs before the love question popped into my head. For example:
--Apparently time is not constant, the single most unintuitive fact in the world. The universe is not composed of space (a normal concept), but rather of space-time (an absurd concept). Once you get beyond the exact gravitational conditions on Earth, time moves at different speeds depending on a number of factors. Gravity makes time move slower. So do high speeds. At extremely high speeds, time moves incredibly slow. If you were able to travel near the speed of light for just a few seconds, you'd return to Earth and decades would have passed. I've been trying to wrap my mind around that, unsuccessfully. Try to imagine getting in some rocket and getting strapped in and noticing a 5-year-old kid standing on the ground outside the rocket. Then you take off, go ridiculously fast for a couple minutes while you read half a page of a magazine, and return to see the 5-year-old, who's now 50, standing there with his kids. Not science fiction-- that would actually happen. It's impossible to actually comprehend this because none of us ever moves fast enough or changes gravity enough to experience anything but absolute, constant time.
--Space-time is warped by matter. Meaning that a star or planet in space changes the space-time around it. Think of a soft foam mat. If you put a pool ball onto it, the ball will sink in, creating a dip in the mat. If you flicked a marble across the mat a few feet from the pool ball, it would move straight, like a piece of rock floating straight through space. But if you flicked it near the dip, it would wrap around the dip and continue in a different direction (like a golfball going around the rim of a hole but not falling in). And if you flicked it too close to the dip, it would probably get sucked in, like a piece of rock falling into the Earth because of gravity.
I won't get into the fact that time actually wraps around stars and planets like the golf ball moving around the rim of a hole and coming off in another direction, because it's too fucking ridiculous. But I'll take it a step back and talk about light. When a planet or star warps space-time, the path of light is affected in the same way the marble's path is affected by the pool ball's "warping" of the surface of the mat. During a solar eclipse (the only time we can see stars on the other side of the sun) constellations that we are used to seeing look wrong and distorted. This is because the presence of the sun is bending the paths of the stars' light on their way to us, making stars look like they're in places they're not. A star that should be on the right will have it's light bent around the sun (like the golf ball) and end up looking like it's on the left.
And the crazy thing is that the bent light is actually moving to us on the fastest path, even though it looks to us like the bent path travels a longer distance than a path straight to our eye. The fastest path from Europe to LA by airplane is up and around Greenland, over the Arctic. The Earth is 3-dimensional, and on a 3D globe that path looks like the correct fastest path. On a 2-dimensional map, though, that path appears to be way out of the way and the straightest path seems to be through the mid-Atlantic Ocean. When we look at light bending around the sun it's like looking at an airplane's 3D path on a 2D scale. Space-time actually exists in 4 dimensions (with time as the 4th dimension). And in the 4 dimensions, the bent light is actually taking the straightest path (like the Arctic is the actual fastest route in 3 dimensions). But since we can only view things in 3 dimensions, the true straightest path will always seem like a longer path to us (like someone who could only view the world as a map and never as a globe).
--The universe is expanding (which is why all galaxies are moving farther away from all other galaxies). One theory suggests that the force of expansion is great enough that it will expand forever, until eventually all the stars have burned out and there's just nothing (miserably depressing). Another theory says the expansion will eventually slow and stop and the universe will begin contracting. This ends with the entire universe contracting into the size of a pinhead, which would undoubtedly be hideously claustrophobic.
I'm going to the kitchen, now, to enjoy a sandwich.
Name Dropping
Name dropping is not cool here in Los Angeles.* There is a whole code of conduct in place regarding the celebrity sighting and the way to handle one. I am not privy to this code of conduct, nor am I interested in becoming acquainted with it. I drop names to as many people as possible immediately upon spotting a celebrity in public.
And today, names have been falling like rain.
It was around noon when my student heard a familiar voice coming from the hallway outside the office. Being unhip, I did not recognize the voice. But my student was sure. "That's Flavor Flav." He and I suddenly needed to get a textbook from my car. Upon entering the hallway, I saw a small, unattractive man wearing a large clock. Indeed, it was none other than Flavor Flav.
The VH1 show "Best Week Ever" is filmed across the hall from my office, so random B-/C+ list celebrities are in and out of there daily. Which explains the presence of Flavor Flav during my explanation of polar coordinates.
It also explains another familiar voice I heard outside the office a few hours later in the afternoon. This one I knew immediately. It was Edgar from "24". For those who don't watch 24, Edgar is a fat, hideous, extremely likeable character on the show. He's been a prime character on 24 for over a year, so it was shocking and gut-wrenching when he died on Monday's episode. My roommate and I sat in stunned silence following the episode, and the next day we both agreed that we were still shaken up from the incident.
So naturally, I was terribly happy to see Edgar, the troll that he is, standing out in the hallway as they prepared the studio for his segment. And I told him just that. "I'm terribly happy to see you." At this, he chuckled, as only Edgar can, and explained that a lot of people had been happy to see him over the past two days.
Flavor Flav and Edgar. Just another day at the office.
*Other things that are not cool here:
-baseball
-polo shirts, khaki pants, sweaters, or shorts
-a Harvard diploma
-black, 1996 Honda Accords with Massachusetts plates
-NVIP
-employment
And today, names have been falling like rain.
It was around noon when my student heard a familiar voice coming from the hallway outside the office. Being unhip, I did not recognize the voice. But my student was sure. "That's Flavor Flav." He and I suddenly needed to get a textbook from my car. Upon entering the hallway, I saw a small, unattractive man wearing a large clock. Indeed, it was none other than Flavor Flav.
The VH1 show "Best Week Ever" is filmed across the hall from my office, so random B-/C+ list celebrities are in and out of there daily. Which explains the presence of Flavor Flav during my explanation of polar coordinates.
It also explains another familiar voice I heard outside the office a few hours later in the afternoon. This one I knew immediately. It was Edgar from "24". For those who don't watch 24, Edgar is a fat, hideous, extremely likeable character on the show. He's been a prime character on 24 for over a year, so it was shocking and gut-wrenching when he died on Monday's episode. My roommate and I sat in stunned silence following the episode, and the next day we both agreed that we were still shaken up from the incident.
So naturally, I was terribly happy to see Edgar, the troll that he is, standing out in the hallway as they prepared the studio for his segment. And I told him just that. "I'm terribly happy to see you." At this, he chuckled, as only Edgar can, and explained that a lot of people had been happy to see him over the past two days.
Flavor Flav and Edgar. Just another day at the office.
*Other things that are not cool here:
-baseball
-polo shirts, khaki pants, sweaters, or shorts
-a Harvard diploma
-black, 1996 Honda Accords with Massachusetts plates
-NVIP
-employment
Skiing
I went skiing at Tahoe this weekend. The mountain was fresh off a snowstorm, and the skiing was fantastic. One of the best ski weekends I've ever experienced.
Yet, most of the time, I was miserable.
That's the funny thing about skiing. It is widely considered to be a luxurious activity, you travel great distances and pay a shitload for the opportunity to do it-- and yet, most of the time, you're pretty miserable. It's not quite like hiking, where you're miserable 99% of the time. At least with skiing, there are chunks of time devoid of misery (whereas with hiking there are none). But misery is an absolute staple of the skiing experience.
The misery component of skiing ranges from about 20% on the ideal ski day (warm weather, great conditions, no lines) to 98% on a horrible ski day (frigid, long lines, icy shitty conditions). Of the three factors when assessing a ski day-- weather, crowdedness, and conditions-- weather, and mainly temperature, is the make or break determinant of the misery percentage. On a freezing ski day, people will say they're having a great time, especially if the snow is great, but they're all lying. No one is having any fun when it's freezing. While calling it quits is a fantastic part of every ski day, it is thrilling when a cold ski day ends.
Somehow, I love skiing anyway. I guess the non-misery component is so great that it makes it all worth it.
Anyway the lowlight of this weekend occurred when I was going quite fast through about a foot of powder and the tip of my ski when directly into a bush that was concealed under the snow, leading me to go soaring through the air horizontally. Normally this moment in mid-air would have been a time for self-reflection and an assessment of the decisions I had made that had led me to this point. But I was distracted when my ski flew off and smashed me in the face, followed by me landing eyeballs first on the ground. Then I searched for my pole for 40 minutes. Now it hurts to open and close my jaw.
There is a bright side of this road though. I have a cut on my face from where the ski smashed me that is almost too manly-looking for words.
As per request:
Yet, most of the time, I was miserable.
That's the funny thing about skiing. It is widely considered to be a luxurious activity, you travel great distances and pay a shitload for the opportunity to do it-- and yet, most of the time, you're pretty miserable. It's not quite like hiking, where you're miserable 99% of the time. At least with skiing, there are chunks of time devoid of misery (whereas with hiking there are none). But misery is an absolute staple of the skiing experience.
The misery component of skiing ranges from about 20% on the ideal ski day (warm weather, great conditions, no lines) to 98% on a horrible ski day (frigid, long lines, icy shitty conditions). Of the three factors when assessing a ski day-- weather, crowdedness, and conditions-- weather, and mainly temperature, is the make or break determinant of the misery percentage. On a freezing ski day, people will say they're having a great time, especially if the snow is great, but they're all lying. No one is having any fun when it's freezing. While calling it quits is a fantastic part of every ski day, it is thrilling when a cold ski day ends.
Somehow, I love skiing anyway. I guess the non-misery component is so great that it makes it all worth it.
Anyway the lowlight of this weekend occurred when I was going quite fast through about a foot of powder and the tip of my ski when directly into a bush that was concealed under the snow, leading me to go soaring through the air horizontally. Normally this moment in mid-air would have been a time for self-reflection and an assessment of the decisions I had made that had led me to this point. But I was distracted when my ski flew off and smashed me in the face, followed by me landing eyeballs first on the ground. Then I searched for my pole for 40 minutes. Now it hurts to open and close my jaw.
There is a bright side of this road though. I have a cut on my face from where the ski smashed me that is almost too manly-looking for words.
As per request:
Idolatry
I really didn't want to write an entry about American Idol. I really really didn't. I asked myself the question, "Do I want to be the kind of guy that writes blog entries about American Idol?" And the answer was always, "no, I don't." Even the little voice in my head would chime in, saying, "Tim, I don't want you to write and publish your thoughts on a little girl's television show on the internet." Yes, all signs pointed to not writing the entry.
And yet, here we are.
Sometimes there are simply too many thoughts on a topic not to write about it, no matter how much dignity you're throwing down the trash chute. I will now self-loathingly detail a number of my thoughts on the show up to this point.
-David Radford was my favorite contestant on the show since day one. It's a damn shame he came out with that lukewarm performance on Wednesday, and an equally damn shame that America didn't give him another chance.
-It's apparent that if a girl is too hot, they will be voted off quickly. A girl who's "cute" or "pretty" can make it far, but not a real hottie. Way too many female voters for that.
-Gedeon is one of the creepiest people I've ever seen. That said, if they made a black Batman, he'd be a phenomenal Joker.
-My attraction to Kellie Pickler is too intense for me to go into any further here.
-What the hell ethnicity is Brenna Gethers? And what the hell ethnicity was Bobby Bennett? Sway?? Who puts three ambiguous people on one show? Apparently America didn't like being confused either.
-Will Makar is an unbelievable little weenie. If he stays on for too long it's going to really piss me off.
-Ryan Seacrest is such a remarkable d-bag it's frightening. He's taken the concept of the douchebag to a level I've never seen before. A friend pointed out that he may in fact be so lame that it's cool. While at first I scoffed at the idea, I've found my hatred for him slowly waning over the past weeks, almost as if I'm starting to appreciate what he's been able to do in redefining the idea of a true d-bag. In any case, I am in real danger of reaching a state where I "enjoy Seacrest."
-The random girl, something McGhee, is not attractive. I didn't want to be attracted to her. But it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it.
-Simon continues to be entirely responsible for the show's credibility. There aren't three judges, there is one real judge and everyone knows it. The other two have yet to establish any rapport with Simon that doesn't leave them looking stupid and unfunny. At least Seacrest has something resembling a mutual feud with Simon (and he still looks stupid in 90% of the interactions).
-I'm fascinated by Elliot Yamin. Who can predict what will happen with a guy that ugly who sings that well? What a weird situation.
-Nothing is more fun than picturing the cool people from Kevin Covais's high school watching the show, and saying, "That guy??! How the hell is that guy on this show??"
-Daughtry looks and sings like the guy from Live. He'll be around until the end, along with Taylor Hicks, Ace, Mandisa, Lisa Tucker, and Paris, in what will be an epic white male vs. black female standoff.
And there we have it. Now I'm off to wrestle a tiger and kill him with my bare hands and eat him raw so I can write about that tomorrow to balance things out.
And yet, here we are.
Sometimes there are simply too many thoughts on a topic not to write about it, no matter how much dignity you're throwing down the trash chute. I will now self-loathingly detail a number of my thoughts on the show up to this point.
-David Radford was my favorite contestant on the show since day one. It's a damn shame he came out with that lukewarm performance on Wednesday, and an equally damn shame that America didn't give him another chance.
-It's apparent that if a girl is too hot, they will be voted off quickly. A girl who's "cute" or "pretty" can make it far, but not a real hottie. Way too many female voters for that.
-Gedeon is one of the creepiest people I've ever seen. That said, if they made a black Batman, he'd be a phenomenal Joker.
-My attraction to Kellie Pickler is too intense for me to go into any further here.
-What the hell ethnicity is Brenna Gethers? And what the hell ethnicity was Bobby Bennett? Sway?? Who puts three ambiguous people on one show? Apparently America didn't like being confused either.
-Will Makar is an unbelievable little weenie. If he stays on for too long it's going to really piss me off.
-Ryan Seacrest is such a remarkable d-bag it's frightening. He's taken the concept of the douchebag to a level I've never seen before. A friend pointed out that he may in fact be so lame that it's cool. While at first I scoffed at the idea, I've found my hatred for him slowly waning over the past weeks, almost as if I'm starting to appreciate what he's been able to do in redefining the idea of a true d-bag. In any case, I am in real danger of reaching a state where I "enjoy Seacrest."
-The random girl, something McGhee, is not attractive. I didn't want to be attracted to her. But it happened, and there's nothing I can do about it.
-Simon continues to be entirely responsible for the show's credibility. There aren't three judges, there is one real judge and everyone knows it. The other two have yet to establish any rapport with Simon that doesn't leave them looking stupid and unfunny. At least Seacrest has something resembling a mutual feud with Simon (and he still looks stupid in 90% of the interactions).
-I'm fascinated by Elliot Yamin. Who can predict what will happen with a guy that ugly who sings that well? What a weird situation.
-Nothing is more fun than picturing the cool people from Kevin Covais's high school watching the show, and saying, "That guy??! How the hell is that guy on this show??"
-Daughtry looks and sings like the guy from Live. He'll be around until the end, along with Taylor Hicks, Ace, Mandisa, Lisa Tucker, and Paris, in what will be an epic white male vs. black female standoff.
And there we have it. Now I'm off to wrestle a tiger and kill him with my bare hands and eat him raw so I can write about that tomorrow to balance things out.
A Pleasant Crossing of Paths
Awhile back I wrote an entry about dogs, and a few days later I wrote another entry about dogs. It was clear that dogs had enjoyed their fair share of face time on this sacred platform. I vowed to keep the lovable cement-heads out of this discourse for a month's time. Thankfully, the month has come and gone.
I still don't know his name. But today when I walked out of my office (where I teach my students the way of the world) to head to the bathroom, I saw none other than a dog standing alone in the hallway. A poochie of sorts. He and I looked at each other, both curious, both a bit shy. Finally, I walked towards him. He said nothing, but his tail began to oscillate, signaling that he felt this to be a positive development (since he can't smile or talk or move his face, his personality seemed to manifest itself mostly in his tail).
Once I was next to him, our vast height difference proved to be a barrier, so I knelt down to his level. I broke the ice by putting my hands on either sides of his head and clutching onto his ears. And though our interaction thus far had been in silence, I spoke:
"Good boy."
And with that, I gave his ears one final affectionate squeeze, and that was that. I went on my way, and he on his.
A simple, yet pleasant interaction. Totally genuine, replete with mutual appreciation and respect, and without even a hint of awkwardness. Only with a dog could I have such a pure and wonderful correspondence. If I attempted a similar sequence with a squirrel, or fish, or insect, or bird, or bear, it would not go smoothly, and it would not end well. My turtle's head would be about two feet deep in his shell the instant I tried to massage his temples affectionately. If I clutched onto a human stranger's ears and complimented them in such a genuine, yet brash fashion, they would find me exceedingly patronizing and terribly creepy.
The dog, though, was pleased to have met me.
I still don't know his name. But today when I walked out of my office (where I teach my students the way of the world) to head to the bathroom, I saw none other than a dog standing alone in the hallway. A poochie of sorts. He and I looked at each other, both curious, both a bit shy. Finally, I walked towards him. He said nothing, but his tail began to oscillate, signaling that he felt this to be a positive development (since he can't smile or talk or move his face, his personality seemed to manifest itself mostly in his tail).
Once I was next to him, our vast height difference proved to be a barrier, so I knelt down to his level. I broke the ice by putting my hands on either sides of his head and clutching onto his ears. And though our interaction thus far had been in silence, I spoke:
"Good boy."
And with that, I gave his ears one final affectionate squeeze, and that was that. I went on my way, and he on his.
A simple, yet pleasant interaction. Totally genuine, replete with mutual appreciation and respect, and without even a hint of awkwardness. Only with a dog could I have such a pure and wonderful correspondence. If I attempted a similar sequence with a squirrel, or fish, or insect, or bird, or bear, it would not go smoothly, and it would not end well. My turtle's head would be about two feet deep in his shell the instant I tried to massage his temples affectionately. If I clutched onto a human stranger's ears and complimented them in such a genuine, yet brash fashion, they would find me exceedingly patronizing and terribly creepy.
The dog, though, was pleased to have met me.
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