Yet another Monday...

Okay here is yet another Monday to be annoyed with. Sunday football utterly destroyed my chances for this week's matchup. Culpepper posted a very disappointing 1.7 or so...basically less than 2 points from a guy who should have put up more than 20. O well on to other things.

I really need to work on my motivation for school and my planning abilities. I have a fair bit of reading in Don Quixote still left over, I'll get it done I always do. And tomorrow before classes start I've got to buy the book that Amazon lost, read the General Prologue of Canterbury in the Middle English and then write a quick paper comparing a few of the professions to modern equivilents (no outside research just personal thoughts and comparisons). The paper is supposed to be around 1000 words so it won't be that difficult but once again my procastination is getting the better of me. Perhaps I should begin to treat myself like a child and not allow myself to do anything until my homework is all done. Ugh, I'm an idiot at times.

On to better things. Last night was the Foozer concernt (Weezer and Foo Fighters). The opening band was some group named Mae they were decent but a bit loud thus distorted on the vocals so true ability was unjudgable. Weezer was the first main act and they utterly blew all expectations away. Solid playing combined with a real interactivity with the crowd just made the show phenomonal (my being on the floor about fifteen people away from the stage really helped as well). Their encore was great because the lead singer came up on the sound board island alone and did an acoustic then returned to the main stage for some more rocking. Next up was the band I really came for Foo Fighters. Dave Grohl was simply ON. Part way through the first song his mic goes out so what does he do? HE simply gets out almost into the crowd and just starts singing along with them getting everyone on the floor to combine into "his voice". After the mic is replaced he finishes and tells us we were great and to do the same thing if it happens again. Overall the best part of the show was everyone else in Foo Fighters leaving the stage for Dave's solo acoustic version of Everlong. I'm so glad they didn't do the rock version because the acoustic is just that much better. Anyways, it was a great night and now I'm off to cheer Philly on against the Atlanta Falcons. Hopefully Westbrook can make me some points some I'm not utterly crushed this week. I also have some reading to do.

It's been a while...

It's a decent song so stealing the title isn't that ridiculous and we all know I'm a thief when it comes to being online.

So it's been a while since I've posted anything. Man I think my brain finally exploded and everything will be a lot better now (kind of like Fight Club at the end where he just lets go of everything and eliminates the part of himself he dislikes). I didn't get rid of any bad habits but I guess I'm just beginning to realize that I'm only human and so I'll do as much as possible and make the rest up as I go along. The reading has been intense, this past week I've read nearly all of Part of Don Quijote (will be into Part 2 by Tuesday), I've read Night, Metamorphosis, The Dead, Paradise Lost Book 1, as well as a few poems and some introductory material/historical information on the Man from Stratford, Aka: Shakespeare. This is in addition to reading the interesting articles of The St. Pete Times, and the USF Oracle (where interestingly enough my response to the editor was published). I've also shot some pool inbetween classes, watched a few movies, Primer, Pi among them both interesting a far out, they really deserve second viewings for best understanding but time is money (especially with Blockbuster Online). However I have recently discovered the renewed power of Peer to Peer and so I decided to check out two shows I've heard a lot about but never seen. The first one, Lost is phenomonal, I've watched the first three episodes and I'm seriously thinking about buying the First Season DVD based on those three alone (see sharing causing folks to buy things they never would have before). The second show was Rome on HBO. I know get HBO as well as HBO on Demand so I can watch ROME whenever I wish, they are on episode 3 which I think I'll be watching later tonight (again file sharing caused me to buy something I would never have bought before, now having HBO I'll also checkout Entourage, also out on DVD First season), and Deadwood as well). Did I mention I've also managed to cram a few hours at work into all this mess? Well I somehow did.

More exciting and recently though. Fantasy football has begun. Last night in the first game of the season I had Deion Branch playing (Wide Receiver for New England) he was projected to post 8.88 points, instead my boy posted 17.65. The real deal is on Sunday (though I have a few players from Philly who play Monday night) I'm really excited about how well my team will hopefully do. A lot of thanks go to Matt Stites for helping me pick the team and stay on top of who should be played and such.

Anyways, check out Nathan's Blog for a great article about the impact of early dating life on marriage. Then stop in at Crystal's Blog for comments on the state of education and reform within our great nation. Both topics that I commented on then lost my train of thought as I've done with this post. Enjoy.

Edited In: Last thing for those who have ever noticed my scroll box in the sidebar. I've updated it so that you can follow my insane reading list, I also changed all the links from Amazon.com over to Barnes and Noble.com because Amazon lost a book of mine and didn't realize it until 8 days after it was supposed to be delivered, I had to call them, argue with their automated system in order to get a person (it wasn't an option I finally just started talking to the machine like I was giving it instructions, it said it couldn't understand finally and that it was connecting me with a person for future assistance). I will say that after five minutes he determined the package must be lost because after pickup on the 29th there were no future updates. The book now takes over 9 days to ship (when I ordered it, it shipped in 24-48 hours) so getting it shipped next day was out of the question. I got a refund and now have to go to the bookstore and buy the book like everyone else. Very upsetting. O well, guess I'll stick to Ecampus in the future and avoid amazon.

Stolen Photos

Sorry about double posting now you have more to read...you are closer to understanding my dilemma. Anyways, was blog-surfing with the next blog button when I ran across a blog about a woman from New Orleans (title links to it). Her most recent post was just hilarious and I had to steal it. Anyways, I'm sure you can all see the hilarity yet sadness of this picture for I'm sure that in certain places it is all too true.

The Joys of the College Newspaper

Today was another joyous day of classes here in Tampa, Florida. I had my Modern Short Novel class (the teacher I'm sure suffers ADHD which should make for interesting times in a three hour class). Overall, after one week of class I'm very excited about this semester. There is going to be a lot of reading as I've mentioned, as well as a fair bit of writing. I feel more than equal to the task.

The most annoying thing about being back on a college campus is the liberal bent to nearly everything that is occurring. I was reading the Oracle - USF's newspaper linked to in this blog title - when I ran across an article titled Above it All this article featured a picture of Bush in Air Force One looking out a window. As you can follow the link to read the full article I'll briefly summarize. "Hurricane Katrina and all the damage to New Orleans caused by it, and the loss of life caused by the Hurricane were all Bush's fault. And he isn't doing a damn thing about it even after the fact." Now this is of course a gross overstatement of the article however, as this is my blog I can do that if I want, go read the article yourself. What upset me was the misrepresentation of the truth. First off Bush did cut short his vacation to return to Washington to meet with Advisors. The photo opportunity idea is just absurd and the article's writer should be kicking himself in the ass concerning the stupidity of including those comments. In any case I wrote a letter to the editor, I'm sure it won't get published there, so I have decided to publish it here in order to gather the opinions of those whom (is that the proper use John?) I respect and believe more qualified to argue with me than those at the Oracle. Here is a copy of the letter I sent them.

In response to your recent criticism of the President's actions concerning the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina; I would like to ask what you would have done had you been President? Yes, going on the air prior to the impact may have encouraged a few more citizens of the city to evacuate - only for them to be stuck in traffic on I-10 with several thousand other individuals. However, due to the liberal leanings of the city it seems more likely they would have just ignored his warnings and done as they planned. They believed themselves more intelligent than the experts so they ignored all advice and decided to stay having no idea of the consequences of that decision. Now that Katrina has passed you say the President should do something. Perhaps the President should have followed your advice and been seen to consoling the victims of the hurricane in New Orleans where several shootings, rapes, and lootings have occurred. One man even began to fire at evacuees from Charity Hospital. In times as stressful as these we should most certainly endanger our Commander-in-Chief for mere photo opportunities. I believe his choice was the best decision he could make. He flew over, assessed the damage as he could, then proceeded to Washington to meet with Emergency Help Coordinators who are better trained to handle such situations and could advise him on the best course of actions to take. Such recent decisions as, sending in more National Guard and Reserve troops and releasing part of the National Petroleum Reserve in order to combat rising gas prices caused by oil shortage. You are correct that cutting funding to the levee system was a mistake, however past powerful hurricanes had hit the area and done minor damage; the unpredictability of weather is what caused this disaster not a decision by the president. A president can not just stand up and issue a command that a hurricane turn aside simply because it turning aside would be more beneficial to his people. A president needs to believe that his citizens are capable of thinking and taking care of themselves to a certain degree. As Katrina turned West then North after entering the Gulf citizens of the likely impact area should have been thinking about past storm intensity and seen the rate of growth that Katrina underwent, these should have been clear signs of imminent danger. Unfortunately they did not heed the warnings of Mother Nature or of the meteorologists whose job it is to predict and forewarn concerning these things. A government that is always telling citizens what to do is not a democracy but rather a dictatorship or socialism, neither of which are systems I wish to live under. Bush acted in a manner consistent with allowing a people to make their own decisions then helping them as much as possible once they realized the horrible bounty those decisions had reaped.



*Note* Please edit as necessary for grammar, spelling though I believe these are both fine. As this is simply an informal letter of opinion I did not give reference to the AP articles I used, if necessary please contact me and I will be happy to provide websites. I do however find it interesting that not all the facts of the story were correct, namely concerning Bush's vacation which he did cut short on Tuesday after hearing reports of the devastation, even if this response does not get printed please begin to check all your facts for validity before going to press. Go here. Thank you for this opportunity.

I'm hoping that you will find it a bit cutting, succinct, and yet tactful enough to be considered for publication. Everyone, let me know what you think I could have done differently with it.