Ploofle

Far from being a movie of dubious repute, it’s a league system like those other sports fantasy leagues. Check it out - perhaps join my league? It’s called “Casual Observer”

Should help me keep a bit more up to date on politics, as, oddly enough, when you register you can sign up for automatic emails of important dates (I’m guessing elections or what-not).

I wonder if they’ll have brackets too….I always sucked at the NCAA College B-Ball ones, given I picked Duke to always win and otherwise chose advancing teams based on how catchy their name was.

Tags: currents

Beginning of the first full week of school here - all moved in, cold as normal, but slowly slowly catching up on emails, to-do’s, and course organization. Laptop was in the shop again this week due to coffee spillage - woo fried mobo! and woo warranty! But now it’s back. My new place is pretty awesome - if I had a kayak or canoe, it’d likely be faster to travel via it to class - I can literally see my building across the lake. It’s also really close to I-5, Capitol Hill, Downtown(ish), U-District, and Eastlake (very), so I can eat and see neat things quite easily. However, I haven’t seen a grocery store within walking distance yet. The two cats here are very nice as well I think I have a box or three MIA, as I seem to have no bathroom products, no computer speakers, and an unusually low number of hangers. It would be one box, I guess, if I mixed them together…

I may have caught a cold from Bonnie, as my throat feels a tad raw - it’s hard to tell what’s cold and what’s just an adjustment to different climes. For those who may be interested, here’s what I’m taking this quarter that’s new:

Health Program Evaluation
Adult Learning: Theory and Practice
Core Competencies in Rural Health (a health sciences interdisciplinary course)

So far so good - of the three above, only one meets regularly; the other two are primarily web-based. So I have to be good and disciplined and stay up. I will also be going to a Pies and Pints-themed party next weekend in Portland. Any suggestions or ideas for a sweet or savory pie? Currently, I’m leaning toward Shepherd’s Pie, but am willing to experiment as long as it’ll travel well

Bonnie left today, and I miss her already. I may or may not see her until Thanksgiving, as money is getting unexpectedly tight for the forseeable future. FYI, as usual, people are welcome to visit if you can manage the trip and don’t mind sleeping on floors .

As a side note, maybe there’s hope for the democratic party. Bonnie also sent me this excellent link: Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007.

I tried to call family today, but didn’t get a hold of anyone. Hopefully no news is good news.

Tags: currents

bear this op-ed in mind: Take this internship and shove it

Interesting parallels concerning the wage floor (floor! of all things) dropping out for young college graduates. I wonder about the scope of unpaid in developing country settings, though - I’ve seen the “pay for a volunteer vacation” experience, but I’ve also seen people search for grants to subsidize their work in developing countries with a place that can’t pay for them. Is it coercion or parachuting in to save the day, then, though?

As a palate cleanser, check out this article: Big Bonuses Still Flow, Even if Bosses Miss Goals as well.

bugmenot should be able to hook you up with a login…

Tags: currents, praxis

…by white supremecists and the type so far Nice to see everyone’s got a bit of bigot in em…interesting to also see that it isn’t widely broadcast yet - not on yahoo or nytimes yet, but I saw it first on…wikipedia. Weird.

Google’s aggregate so far: Linky

I’ve heard rumblings from people I know from Austria of arab descent starting a few years back, and we’ve seen France, and now Australia. Hmm. Patterns?

As for other riots, China’s had em recently, too, but more for corruption/disparities. Oh, wait, that’s kinda the same, isn’t it?

Tags: currents

Totally unrelated, but figured I’d post about em both at one time, as I’m in hurry and at work and what not.

So…the big thing on penny arcade, slashdot, etc., is about this guy jack thompson who’s saying essentially GTA and other games of that type are the root of all evil that is American (go ‘merica!) or whatever. See this and this for background information. A lot of people are saying that this is just what he wants though - attention. Just to see what other people think of this (and how else it can be used), this is sorta a variation on a drinking game - the kind where every time you see x on a show or whatever, you take a drink. What I’ve seen done in Durham when Fred Phelps came to town was that people would donate a certain amount of money (say, anywhere from a dime to a couple bucks) for every minute he hate-mongered (you know, the usual “the Pope is Satan”, gay stuff I won’t mention here, etc.). In Durham, where his extended clan picketed the Durham School of the Arts’ production of ‘The Laramie Project,’ I believe the tally was something like $75-100 dollars for every minute they protested. The money then goes to a local non-profit, in this case a LGBT one, in his name. This riles em up real good and at the same time encourages them to make their picketing as brief as possible, which is good too. So either way, picketing or not, people are happy. And when you’re getting $100 a minute for an hour and giving to a non-profit whose typical annual budget is in the $100-200k range, that donation’s not much to sniff at.

Secondly, about the whole terrorism cell thing (which, I believe, was used similarly in the Resistance in France during WWII or in the Underground Railway) - wouldn’t it be scary if the US/UK/NATO people decided to follow suit and create cells in the community rather than a standing army? Man…you wouldn’t know who you were talking to, even. Scary shit.

Tags: currents