maiden madden post

ah. this is my first real chance to soil what has - so far - been a pretty serious and straightforward blog by posting madden screenshots. my day is complete.

sadly, the niners' run at a perfect season came to an end two nights ago as they lost 31-28 to the HOUSTON TEXANS. yeah, i didn't believe it either.

it was seriously one of the best back-and-forth games i've played in my long madden history, and as much as you can respect an AI (which is not much), i think the AI really brought it's A game and proved it could hang with the big boys.

despite being outgunned, outmanned, and under-dogged (that sounds dirtier than i intended), the texans jumped right out to a 10-0 lead early and totally shut down the niner offense for the first quarter. then bowes got it back to 10-7 when he pretty much singlehandedly covered 78 yards in five plays.

from there, it was back and forth until the final six minutes when the texans tied things up with a score and a ridiculous two-point conversion involving a fumble and a QB sack. then the niners took the lead again with another touchdown with about five minutes on the clock. then the texans drove down to the 1, and were held three straight downs until 4th and 1 with 3 minutes left, when the pass bounced off a DB's shoulderpad, off the running back's helmet and into the hands of a diving tight end in the end zone for the tie. they added a field goal almost immediately, and then the niners - down by 3 with 48 seconds left and no time outs - got down to the 40 and appeared to score on a bomb to mike prewett with no time left on the clock until the referee reversed the call, saying the catch was out of bounds.

i guess if your perfect season has to be ruined, that's the way to do it. oh well.

i'm going for revenge against someone (i'm not sure who) in a few minutes. only working for like 9 hours in a day rocks.

bunting pulling in a TD pass on third and goal early on:

scholl tying the game up late...but for NAUGHT! FOR NAUGHT!!!
bowes harnessing the power of his inner cheetah/demon party animal:

dispatch from the trenches

there’s always something a little surreal about conference week. I like the idea, both in practice and in theory, of setting aside a week without classes to interact one-on-one with each of my students. especially considering the dearth of students in general at office hours and after class, it’s often the only time I get to talk to a lot of them directly through the entire semester. however, it’s always just a little weird once I get into the rhythm of actually doing it. before, when I worked on the third floor, it was the weirdness of needing to essentially wall myself off in the middle of what was normally a constantly social environment for me. I was always physically around in my usual workplace during conference week, but wasn’t really able to do anything but be constantly vigilant, always presentable, always on the lookout for the next student, never allowed to be purposely exploding things in the communal microwave or throwing huge 1,000 page tomes down the hall at random like I would normally do.

(I hate that Microsoft Word presumes to capitalize my “I”s. it’s screwing up my slacker vibe.)

now this semester, when it’s usually quid pro quo for me to be isolated anyway, it’s somehow still weird to be sitting here in the Bookie, eight hours at a time, watching everyone come and go but remaining as constant as the ridiculous faux-Native American furniture. conferences sort of exacerbate the already wide gap between the amount of time students spend on one particular class and the amount of time I spend on that class. it’s bizarre; they’re each in for 10 minutes or so, ten minutes of the entire week, and I’m here for eight hours a day or so for five straight days just covering everyone’s 10 minutes. I’m not complaining because obviously I don’t have to do this, I’m just observing the strangeness. I think it sort of reinforces that idea that most of them seem to have that I’m pretty much just a constantly working and teaching english machine without really anything else going on.

well, as sadly close to the truth as that actually is…

…I’m also uncomfortable projecting that appearance any more than I absolutely have to.

I haven’t gotten to go on my usual diet coke binge today on account of the fact that my throat is still fucked up from my sinus infection and not keeping it immensely hydrated = not being able to talk. the result of drinking water instead of diet coke appears to be that I become super bitchy and my head feels like humungous wooly caterpillars with metal, spiky shoes are tromping around inside of it.

but after not smoking at all for 2 weeks or so, stopping the diet coke infusion too is nice…I might have a roaring headache, but it’s nice to know that my brain is entirely under my control for the first time in probably 5-6 months, maybe more like a year.

well, sometime between the beginning of this entry to the end it moved from 9am to 3pm…the first day of conferences is almost at an end. I’m gonna call down to the music store after I’m finished and see if they have anyone who can work on my 650 dollar amp, which of course musician’s friend broke somehow during shipping (oh, and then also are shipping my “backordered” bass on november 26^th, even though they said it was in stock when I ordered it 2 weeks ago). so here’s hoping they can do something. if I don’t have some sort of creative project/outlet soon, I’m probably just going to have a brain aneurysm or something. doing nothing but working and worrying about how crappy your current life situation is is the suck.

I’m really excited for this december show…partially because of all the new bridges, segues, and jams that I’ve been working on, and partially because I’m not at all scared anymore to perform. it’s hard to be scared when you really don’t care anymore about what anyone thinks of you or whether they think you’re good or not. I’m just much more focused on trying to be happy than I was previously, and worrying excessively over other peoples’ appraisal of my worth morally, artistically, professionally, etc. is just more trouble than it’s worth. I’m a harsh enough critic when it comes to me that I’ll probably catch most things that really need fixed on my own…

I’ve had 21 fucking 15-minute conferences today. do you know how many conferences that is? wait, I just told you…

two left. then it’s off to maybe not actually work all night. maybe. it depends on how stressed out I’m feeling about my grad school applications…of course, without 500mg of diet coke, I’m not really feeling uber-stressed about anything. on the other hand, my bladder is about to explode. so that’s pretty sweet.

I’m sorry for all the rambling, but I’m going to try to get back in the 2005 habit of long, rambling blog posts that don’t mean anything, as well as stepping up other meaningful hobbies such as playing starcraft, writing song lyrics on napkins in diners at odd hours of the night, writing impromptu poetry in book jackets of books that may or may not belong to me, playing starcraft, swinging on swingsets, learning more weird guitar scales and ways of chording that result in crazy-ass jazz sounding slide transitions, playing starcraft, learning how to cut my hair in a mirror without looking like robert smith, playing starcraft, generally trying to be less bitchy, playing starcraft, and…uh…oh, yeah: playing starcraft.

so what I’m really saying is that I’m not sorry for all the rambling.

I’m hoping that having some productive, creative things to do in my “spare” time will help offset the desire to destroy my ability to have feelings using various drugs and intentional sleep deprivation. and who knows, I might finally get a few of these damn short stories/essays published, or apply to a grad school by mistake or maybe even *gasp* play starcraft!

instead of grading papers last night...

i went on a fake date with a board game.

this is as sad as it sounds, perhaps more so. but i found the pictures amusing.

hotter than the bowels of hell

there are a large number of things that, to me, recommend the WSU english department and avery hall in particular as a great place to do grad/adjunct work. but there is decidedly one thing that makes me constantly want to run screaming from the building.

i don't do well in warm temperatures. i love summer for the feeling of just about anything being possible, for being out on the road with no destination in mind, and for the ability to sleep on the ground at night with nothing but the clothes on your back if it seems appropriate. overall though, it could be autumn and winter all year and i wouldn't complain. i had a dream last night that it was snowing and was heartbroken this morning to find that it was 65 degrees. anyway, my point is that anything above 60-65 has the potential to annoy the shit out of me.

that said, every year the air conditioning system in avery hall makes me want to kill myself. it's never on at all in august or september, which basically means everyone is constantly roasting and sweating to death in their offices. then, around the beginning of october, the AC mysteriously comes on for about 2 weeks, ironically just when it's starting to get cold out. then, invariably, it switches to heat just about the time indian summer kicks in. and i don't mean just "heat", i mean like fucking dragon's breath heat. last night it was 22 degrees outside, and i was sitting right next to my open window in my office (and this window is about 4 feet across) with just a t-shirt and jeans on and i was sweating. this heat will remain on, way too high, from now until about april...and then once we spend an entire month or so in april having 70 degree temperatures outside and wilting heat blasts inside, it will eventually give way to nothing again, the AC apparently having given its all for those 2 weeks in early october.

this has happened 3 years in a row now, and is especially frustrating if you like, say, occasionally wearing a dress shirt or jacket or sweater to class...because you just can't wear anything but one shirt and a pair of pants with really thin socks in the building. ever. or you die.

i can appreciate having heat in the winter as much as the next guy, but you don't have to make it 75-80 degrees inside to compensate for it being 40 outside. right now, it's almost 70 outside and my heating vents are blowing on me from the ceiling. why? WHY GOD, WHY?!

morrissey is bugging me again...

what possible thought process could repeatedly lead me down this road? every time i'm grading, at some point i pop in a Smith's album and start listening. and every time, about 45 minutes later, i want to electrocute myself. obviously listening to morrissey isn't good for morale, but somehow i always end up doing it anyway. i have the short term memory of a brain-damaged dog.

anyway, i just wanted to blog for the third time in a few hours to explain my blog title. i was trying to pick something clever today while i was sitting around waiting for my students to finish their library research session, and while i was trying to think of some destructively intelligent and obscure quote from a great piece of literature, i was reading this excellent short essay called "my fake job" by Rodney Rothman. very basically, he decides to just start "working" at this office space-esque workplace without actually applying, proving that he's who he says he is, or anything. just walks in one day, sits down at a computer and pretends to work for a few weeks. anyway, he gets in the building late one night and is just sitting around after everyone else has left and the cleaning lady is sweeping up, "working" on his computer, and he writes of this weird, work-after-work surreality:
"I've always liked offices during the fringe hours, early morning and in the evening. It's liberating to spend peaceful time in a place that's normally frantic. To me, the sound of a night cleaning crew is like a rolling country stream."
This is pretty much the state i spend most of my time in; hanging out in places that at other times of the day, other times of the week, other times of the year, would be crazy with activity, but during times when they're not "in use" are, well, useless...to almost everybody. Anyway, that's where i stole my title from...so now when I'm sitting here at 2am or 6am, sunup or sundown, hammering out tracts about the minutiae of my daily life, at least i can feel cool about it.

who listens to the words in songs anymore anyway?

i've been listening to and loving this new Black Kids EP (free download on myspace) for three days now. they're so sonically cool. and dreamy. and versatile. good times.

i'm between avery grading visits at the moment, having come home an hour ago to pick up some stuff from UPS and eat before going back in. anyway, i was bouncing around the living room to "Hurricane Jane", having a grand ol' time by myself until i actually listened to the chorus lyrics, which are something like "it's friday night and i ain't got nobody, what's the use in makin' the bed?" upon which i suddenly realized that it was friday night, i was alone, and my bed was unmade. nothing like a moment like that to steal your dancin' shoes.

i'm going to try cutting my hair and then it's back to avery. i'll post pictures if i end up looking like i've got the mange.

the great long-neck migration

well, folks...here i am. i'm moving my blog over to blogger in time with the beast slouching towards bethlehem to signal the coming of the apocalypse.

after all the shit i talked about blogger for years, i've slammed the door shut on poor old LJ, even though she was never anything but good to me and stuck around even when i was neglecting her these past few months. she still hosted my potentially embarassing pages of madden 2003 screenshots without any indication of judgment. and what did i do? i slammed the door in her face. yeah, i'm just a bastard.

blogger is so cool.

hey! LJ! check out me and blogger! we're just crusin' around downtown in the drop-top...prolly gonna swing by panera bread and then maybe go to borders and just sit on the couches and read. just fuckin' sit there. not even buy anything. just sit there. and maybe afterwards we'll get some coffee and chat about what we've read because our interests coincide so perfectly! then afterwards we'll go back to my place and get freaky on the kitchen table where i used to have to spend hours scrubbing your fucking messes up with steel wool after you were done cooking that godawful chicken marsala that i pretended to like! yeeeah!!!

okay, i've taken this metaphor to its logical end.

anyway, i'm on blogger now. so y'all better get ready. i might be five years behind the times, but i make up for it by moving really, really fast ALL THE TIME.

"zap" and "zoom" and all that.