in case you were wondering

I'm enjoying classes so far this semester. I've got one class in Documentary Poetics, and I think that I don't really like documentary poems all that much. Maybe I just don't get them. But it seems a little cheap and gimicky to me sometimes. Like rearanging pieces of newspaper articles and putting them together and making it into a poem. They also seem, at least so far, to all be overtly political, which is fine, just not my cup of tea.
I'm happy as a clam in my 20th Century African American fiction class because we are jeading nothing but philosophy for the first three weeks.
And my class in Modern Drama is quite interesting, the prof is funny, i'm reading lots of plays that I should really already be familiar with, but I'm not.

this is neat

hey everybody.

Check this out. She has some amazing pictures. n a n c y b u r s o n

you say it's your birthday

Happy birthday Steve!
have some cake.

overheard in a coffee shop

-Have you been to Blinky's over on 54th?
-No
-It's a vegan cheesesteak place.

Later

-I was going to marry my friend once we turned 18.
-Really?
-Well, just because my stepfather found out I was a lesbian, and he was pretty pissed about it, so I thought it would really piss him off if I married a Black man.

Karma?

So on my way to campus this morning, I took what I thought were two subway tokens with me. I found out after depositing one of my coins into the subway-turnstile-coin-taking-thing, that really, one of them was a quarter. So, a little upset that I just lost a quarter, I deposited my token and went to campus. Once I finally got to the gym, I found out that all the rental lockers are full. I spotted pay lockers (different from the rental ones) thak take a quarter to work. My mind raced back to the quarter i had lost this morning (i realize that i didn't mean to bring the quarter in the first place, but had I deposited my actual token instead of the quarter, i might have found that quarter in my time of need. Already cold and grumbling from my excursion to the bursar's office, i happened to look down on the ground, and there is a shiny quarter at my feet, like the universe put it there just for me, following some conservation of lost quarters law. and the best part is, that after my workout, I found out that the lockers give you the quarter back when you return the key!!

Beurocracy, or How Temple University is Trying to Keep Me Fat

I went onto temple's website, and looked to see what I needed to do to use the gym. I found out that
"All Temple undergraduate students taking12 credit hours or more and graduate students taking 9 hours or more are automatically assessed a student recreation fee per semester. This fee entitles you to use the ibc Student Rec Center, the Student Pavilion, and Pool 30 in Pearson Hall. All others must pay a recreation user fee."
I even called the fitness center and asked if I needed to fill out any paperwork or pay any additional fees. the answer was, "no, not as long as you are registered for 9 or more credits." Since I am regisetered for 9 or more credits, I went to the gym this morning in my gym stuff. I handed over my id to be scanned to gain entrance to the gym, and was told that I haven't paid my student recreation fee. But I have, i insisted, i was charged $150 in fees, I have my card right here that proves I paid my activities fee.
"that's a different fee. this is a recreation fee. if you're not registered for 9 credits, you have to pay the fee."
But, I am registered for 9 credits.
"oh," clickity clikcity clack "you are a center city student, your'e not registered on the main campus. you have to be registered for 9 credits at the main campus."
But I'm not a center city student, I'm in a regular program at the regular campus. Last semester all my classes were at the main campus; this semester two are downtown, and one is at the main campus.
"yeah. you're a center city student. you'll have to pay the fee"
can I pay the fee now? or can you add it to my bill?
"no, you have to go to the bursar's office, they won't let us take money here."
So after a trip to the bursar's office to pay another fee, and a trip to the student recreation administrative office to sign waivers, I trucked off to the gym.
Hah! take that Temple! your beurocracy cannot thwart my fitness efforts! I laugh at your multiple dispersed offices! I pshaw at your assesment of fees! I am unstoppable!
I do wonder, though, if I couldn't pay a fee at the gym, why could I pay one at the computer center when I picked up my antivirus software? I don't think the computer center is the bursar's office, so why can they add a fee to my bll, when the gym can't hmmmm?

hee hee for hobbitses

a helpful link for our furry footed friends:Hoom! Maps and Walking Directions

and for all those people who were wondering about the sexual orientation of the hobbits, as my brother said the other night "what happens on mordor, stays on mordor."

bushwhacked 2!

in honor of the state of the union address scheduled for this evening, bushwhacked2! good stuff

how 'bout them pats?

good job guys; congratulations! let's bring home another championship....
but wouldn't it be great if the sox made the sereis?

go pats

I too would like to assert my support for the Patriots representing the New England states in this afternoon's contest.

I *heart* google

After spending a month with my favorite mac, I think i'm becoming a convert. the main reason is sherlock, which is an amazing little program. So now that i'm back with my trusty pc, i've been searching for a windows based equivilant. It doesn't seem to exist. But what does exist is Google. They are going to take over the world, and when they are done, it will be a much, much better place. The stuff they have going over atgoogle labs is just amazing. I downloaded the deskbar, which lets you search from your desktop instead of having to open up the browser. It sounds lazy, but i prefer to think of it as amazingly efficient. also search by location will make finding the phone number of the pizza place around the corner much easier, you type in your search, and an address or zip, and you get a map with whatever you searched for marked on it. lots of other cool stuff, but these seem to be the most useful so far.

elections

I've heard some people talking recently about the presidential race, and about the last election and elections in general, and some people i know have said that we should get rid of the electoral college and elect our president directly so as to keep a situation like we had in 2000 where gore won the popular vote and lost the election from happening again. as much as i want bush out of office, really, i think the electoral college is a good thing. here's a quote from Approval Voting: Rational, Constitutional Electoral Reform by Paul Hager that sums up why:
"The Electoral College also imposes a requirement on a successful candidate that the popular vote be sufficiently distributed to obtain a majority, which prevents regional domination. Very few Presidents have won the Electoral College with victories in a minority of the states. George W. Bush pieced together his victory by winning 31 states (over 60%). Had Gore won, it would have been with the lowest percentage of states in history. (In comparison, Kennedy had 46% of the states in 1960 and Carter had 47% in 1976.) It is worth noting that around 1/3 of Al Gore's popular vote margin over George W. Bush came from Washington, D.C alone where Gore got 86% of the popular vote."
the system keeps politicians from ignoring the needs of less populous states.

i say

if bush wants to go to the moon,
we really shouldn't try to keep him here

hey

is the molecular kinetic energy of the local atmosphere low enough to suit your needs?

does this really surprise anyone?

if you search for "latent homoerotic tendencies" (i'm talking google and yahoo, not observing mannerisms) this blog is the number 2 hit.

see

yet another reason to drink that magical elixir known as coffee. it now prevents diabetes.
some of my favorite coffee destinations:

• espresso vivace
widely recognized as the best coffee in seattle

• diesel
where i've been going for my daily fix recently

• peets
there will always be a soft spot in my heart for peets; it's where i was introduced to my first mocha

• bauhaus
i once had what can only be described as a spiritual experience there

resolutions

remember to write thank you notes
be more organized (this is a perrenial one)
be more prompt with my weblog posts
improve my musical literacy
contact my friends instead of sitting around waiting for them to get in touch with me.

things i'd like to see in 2004

no bush in dc
bo sox world series
pats win again
more brunch
funding for school
a big movie to live up to my expectations for it
more lists