May 15, 2007
Buffalo Sandwich
Answers
Yes, I do wash my hands after going
The fact that the thumb is on the side doesnt differentiate it from a finger. They still do the same thing dont they? But what is the physical difference between them other than position?
May 14, 2007
As you like it
One year, Cal Band owned USC band with hecka tubas and the world's largest sousaphone. But I digress. The real purpose was to lead up to the awesome joke. But yeah. I really wonder what stirs this competition between schools? The desire to be best? How absurd. I guess that's how it is when my school is so vain. Oh, we must get test scores up, oh we must have every single senior taking an AP class, Oh we must get top scores on Star tests. Oh we gotta fix the pee-pees cause they scare visitors. Everything is true. I remember attending three graduations in my four years there. One of them was under the administration of a wonderful woman. Ms. Sheratt. She knew how to do things. Hardly ever did she mention scores or anything so silly. She only mentioned how she was proud of the graduating class. Under Janvier's Administration, I recall at the last graduation, all he mentioned was the high acceptance rate into UC Berkeley and all the really super duper high scores on AP tests and the SATs and STARs.
To quote a mangled Vonnegut: Why dont you take a flying fuck at the AP TESTS?!!!?!?
Anyways. I'll probably nod off during my graduation. With the entire brain trust standing there in yellow and white ceremonial robes. *scoff* What hideous colors. Even if they are the school colors... You can see right through the white robes and only the ladies wear them. The yellow robes are just an eyesore. Whatever happened to wearing only black robes like in colleges and other normal schools?
Before somebody blond attacks me for my inaccuracies about my school, I'd like to thank Mom and Pop, Miss Jami and my Uncle Ross for all they've done for me to get into UC Berkeley.
And now, the topper.
A Cal student and a Stanford student are both using the men's room.
When they finish their business, the Cal student heads for the door, while the
Stanford student heads for the sink. The Stanford students calls to the Cal student, "At
Stanford, they teach us to wash our hands after using the bathroom"
The Cal student replies nonchalantly, "At Cal, they teach us not to pee on our hands."
Do I?
PS
What's the difference between the fingers and the thumb?
An Ingersoll Moment
I quote:
"But," says the religionist, "you cannot explain everything; you cannot understand everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you do not comprehend, is my God."
We are explaining more every day. We are understanding more every day; consequently your God is growing smaller every day.
Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.
-Robert Green Ingersoll (The Gods 1872)
May 13, 2007
Why?
I had arrived at my aunt's house for Mother's Day. I had given my mom a kick ass wooden lantern I stained and built the lid that day too. But Anywhoo... I had gotten up to the first landing of her Apartment, I took off my shoes and picked up the right one. Lo and behold, an ancient piece of gum that looks like it had been smash there was stuck. Right in the middle of the shoe. I'm very anal about these sort of things. I looked down and I just wanted to rip the little mother fu***** out. But it's disgusting. My asian side kicks in and says "NO! No touchie! Nasty, Dirty, Been in someone poor's mouth!" So to this very moment, the gum is still there and it's driving me bananas. I must figure out someway to pull it off. So the nice hexagon and triangle pattern on the bottom of my shoe has been ruined by someone's giant blob of gum. By someone who was too lazy to give a damn about someone else. Oh yes, I used to be one of them. Until the day I got a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of my chuck taylors the size of a miniature pumpkin. For that one, I took a rock from the neighbor's yard and just started hacking at the damn thing. But for this. I have no clue how to remove it. With all of modern man's advancements, i'd think at least we'd be able to remove gum from shoes. We put man on the moon, developed nuclear weapons, fought diseases, covered both poles, created artifical hearts. But we're still stuck with that damn little shitty piece of gum under our shoes. Oh how cruel life is.
The second event that really ticked my tocker was when I pulled out my Hurley shirt. You know, the two parentheses like this: )( The label on the inside of the shirt is impritnted on the shirt itself and already its coming off. Only after 5 wears and the stuff is coming off. Well, that's not the worst of it. But I pull out my shirt and I hold it in my hands and *horrendous music* A stain. But the worst of it is I dont know from what. That's the problem with wearing white clothing. You get these stupid fat person stains and these are kinda obvious. Right on my belly button. It looks like a damn map of Hawaii. Agrah. My one month old shirt. Ruined already!
So I gripe. And now, I shall go in search for a way to remove gum from shoes.
Why my posts suck
Also, the rise of ghetto idiots at my school has got me worried. More ghetto douche bags = less participants in music program. This year was a pretty good sizable orchestra. For once, three different saxophones as well as more than just Jose on Trombone. Of course, they're like wild animals too. Acting as student music director, I conduct when the director isint around, but no one can listen, and no one can play. Sometimes, I honestly believe everyone just remembers how to play the piece once. What they dont realize is that no every conductor has the exact same style. Just comparing Bernstein's and Ormandy's interpretation of Shostakovich's 5th symphony is simply in my words: amazing. Bernstein, a more fluid and flowey piece. Ormandy, slightly rigid, but slow, as a sort of emphasis on every note. To draw out meaning from everything.
I digress. Ghetto Idiots. That's all I ever post about. All my entire blog has ever been about is me blowing off steam in my frustration of idiots everywhere. I've got nothing worthwhile to say. Or do I? I dont know anymore. Its really getting confusing on what a blog should be. Some of the blogs I regularly check are just nothing more than showing cool things, rather than a personal post blog like Newnorth or Puntabulous. I really should read more than just that.
Answer to a blog comment question
May 10, 2007
I've come to terms
An open letter
I understand how you girls can do all this stuff and do multiple things at the same time, but its disgusting when you do what you were doing on the bus. Almost as annoying as the woman who would jerk her head about to mimic dancing, or concept of following rhythm. But what you did, talk on the phone and clip your nails, you take rudeness to a whole new level. Yeah, we get that you enjoy talking on your phone, but when you talk and clip your nails, its gross. I feel deep sorrow for the person who is on the line who has to listen to your fat assed voice and listen for the click click click of you leaving your DNA all over a brand new bus.
Advice to you, save that for home where it belongs.
The damn bus
May 06, 2007
The otherside
I didn’t expect her to come to me. There were plenty tables inside the café that day. How she even found me, I would never know. She pulled the worn wooden chair from under the table and placed her bag on it. She walked back to the counter to place her order. She left before I could get a good glimpse of her. Was it not customary to ask if the seat was taken first? How strange I thought. I folded up the newspaper neatly and placed it in the recycle bin and sat back down in my seat. My laptop was closed on the table, its bulky auxiliary batter sitting below it. Hesitating, I opened it and switched it on. Maybe she would go away if I looked busy at the computer. I pulled up a word document, and a spread sheet with several figures on it and set to work. Or at least make it look like work. She sat back down, with a large bowl sized cup of coffee. I peered over the top of the screen to get a good look of her without looking like a staring pervert. She was quite pretty. She had curly brown hair and these eyes that you could get lost in. They were like cat’s eyes marbles. I remember them quite well since I had a large bag of them as a child. I quickly shuffled back to work behind my wall. From the sides, I saw her hands working to un-kink a pair of headphones and an mp3 player from her purse. It seemed in the next ten minutes, she emptied the entire contents of her purse onto the table. A book, a small compact, a package of tissues, several hairclips and a wallet was set in the space on the small round table between the edge and my laptop front. I was tempted to fold down the screen to ask her if she needed to pull out the vanity as well. But I shook my head and buried myself in work again. She dropped the compact on the ground and I giggled. She turned around and looked at me. My cover was blown.
“Pardon?”
“Oh? Um… Nothing.”
“Yeah, sure. Nothing at all hm? That’s as likely as you doing any work behind that computer of yours.” When she said that, I choked a little on my spit. I laughed rather clumsily and tried to look busy. But she stood and walked over to my side and looked down at the screen. “Ha. Work you say. Its just a web page you know.” I looked back at the screen in horror. She was right. I had left a firefox page up showing nothing but college football scores.
“Well, it looks like you blew my cover.” I said.
“That may be so, but could you…” Her hand indicated at the compact still on the floor.
“Oh. How careless of me.” I bent over to grab the small thing. “You women and your makeup.”
“You men and your football.”
“You got me there.”
“My name’s Susan.”
“Ah, that’s a pretty name. I’m Greg. Greg Keely.”
“Keely eh? That’s a funny name.”
“Yeah, then what’s yours hm?”
“Um… well, I don’t tell most strangers.”
“I told you mine. And you know I’m Greg. Greg Keely.”
“Well ok Mr. Greg Greg Keely. My last name is McKim-Vadillo.”
“And you say my last name is funny.”
“Mine’s just long. Yours sounds funny.”
“Fine. I’ll bite.” She sat down in her chair. “I got the last name from my father, and he got it from his grandfather. But that’s about it. Before that, we were the Dundermans.”
“Dundermans?” She laughed. Her curls bounced as she did. “I’m glad you name is Keely.”
“Nope, it’s Greg.”
“Oh yes. So what do you do then?”
What could I say? I was unemployed just a week ago and now I’m working as a part time autoshop teacher as well as a Swedish teacher at
“It cant be that hard. Watch me. I am a cashier at Durant-Paulson Books. I love the work. I’m surrounded by books there and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“Ok, you make it seem so easy. I’ll try then.” I cleared my throat and tried to look as professional as I could. “I teach Swedish at Balboa.” Those words came out rather rushed and to me, they sounded like I had inhaled a tank of helium.
“Swedish eh? That’s… that’s… well um…”
“Stupid isn’t it?”
“No, no, no. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“Well I think it is. Most of the kids don’t really pick it up at all. I end up with most of the bad kids and the few genuine kids who would want to learn such a language.”
“I’m sure I would have taken it.”
“Oh? Why?”
“I don’t know. Maybe because I know you’re the cute teacher teaching it.”
“Oh stop. I’m not that handsome. My last two girlfriends left me for that reason. I guess I’m not used to being called… handsome.”
“Those two wouldn’t know their ass from their elbow.”
Our conversation dragged for a few more hours and the streetlights outside in the squares were bright. We talked about everything from Faulkner to Hemingway. I showed her my frayed copy of The Sound and the Fury my mother had given me when I graduated from High School. The cloth cover was worn out and you couldn’t make out the name without getting close to the cover. It was 8:55 pm by now and I forgot I had to arrive at school early to help out with the entrance exams tomorrow. We stepped out into the open
May 05, 2007
An old spontaneous story
You go up to him, you arent nervous. He spots you and cant help but smile. He moves his curly hair out of his face and glasses and offers you a seat. You move first by asking "watcha readin'?" He chuckles and can only say one word. "Faulkner".
Just the name Faulkner brings a mystique about him. He sets the book down and pulls out another book. The Grapes of Wrath. He certainly likes his classics you think. He apologizes for himself and explains he's a high school english teacher. He doesn't conform to the reading schedules schools provide for him and encourages everyone in his classes to read as much as possible.
You cant help it. You're pretty much glued to the wooden bench next to him. He sees you squirm a little and apologizes again. This time and offers you a pillow. You take it and blush. The thin wiry girl behind the stained counter calls you out. "Order up!" she cries. You flush with a little embarrassment and grab your coffee and sit back down next to your new stranger. Your eyes shoot daggers at the coffee lady. Her multiple piercings flash you with reflections from the old ceiling lamps.
He chuckles and puts the books away. You and him talk for hours on end about everything. The little nit picky details of F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing, or the beauty and simplicity of Hemingway. He notices its late now. You've lost complete track of time. Outside in Washington square, the lights are on and the cathedral is illuminated a brilliant white. He offers you his arm and to take you to your apartment. You tell him, you're an outsider. Not a San Franciscan.
What made him jump in shock, you'll never know. But he stays anyways. Waiting for the bus under the kiosk, the cold night air whips both of you. The bus is here. The electric arms clatter against the wires. You sit in back staring through the back portal and he's still there. The jolt of the starting bus rocks everything and everyone on board. A bag of fruit spills over. An old chinese woman stoops to pick them up. You help her. You look back up through the portal. He's gone. But you dont realize it, his Faulkner is in your hands.
May 01, 2007
Fit of Boredom
April 29, 2007
Hats rule! Naw, just rules
GARY WARTH, Staff Writer
North County Times
Escondido, California
Hats are surprisingly complicated things.
They keep their wearers warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and sometimes function strictly as fashion accessories. But they also come with etiquette so complex that people have to consult guides just to wear them.
No other article of clothing must be donned, tipped or shed depending on the time of day, the type of event attended, whether the National Anthem is being played or whether a woman is present.
Sometimes hats are removed in elevators, sometimes they aren't. Men must take off their hats during the National Anthem, but women don't. Or do they?
There was a time when almost everyone knew these rules, but ever since hats fell out of fashion about 40 years ago, entire generations have come of age with little understanding of proper topper protocol.
More casual rules are followed today, sometimes appalling older people who remember traditional customs. So if you're donning an Easter bonnet today, it couldn't hurt to know some of the rules.
Respectful, but flirtatious
"It used to be very much an act of courtesy and respect to remove your hat," said Rancho Santa Fe resident Susan Witt, who teaches international protocol at San Diego State University. "It was kind of a flourish when a man removed a hat to show courtesy to a woman. It was a way of flirting. I think if men realized how handsome they looked when they wear a hat, they'd make a comeback."
Men aren't expected anymore to tip their hats in passing to women, but they are expected to remove them during the National Anthem. But are women required to do so?
"If it's a formal hat, even during the National Anthem, a woman would not remove her hat," Witt said.
Not everybody understand that rule, however, and some people take offense when a woman leaves her hat on. In those cases, Witt suggests it is better to set protocol aside for civility and harmony. "Sometimes it's better to succumb to the moment," she said.
Why are there different rules for men and women? Nationally syndicated columnist Miss Manners suspects it may have to do with the dramatically different styles of men's and women's hats.
Men's hats are easily removed, but women's hats with ribbons, bows, flowers and other decorations can be quite a production to remove, especially if they're anchored with hat pins.
Fair enough, but what if the woman and man are both wearing baseball caps? Does it make sense that only the man takes off his headgear during the National Anthem? Probably not, Miss Manners suggests. Without the traditional ladies' hat, she wrote, "you cannot claim the ladies' exemption."
Readers also have asked Miss Manners whether women are required to wear hats indoors and outdoors during the day, a question that once would have been obvious, according to Miss Manners.
"Ladies properly keep their hats on indoors, everywhere except their own houses, during the day," she writes. "Luncheons even traditionally required ladies to wear hats."
Miss Manners recognizes that some rules vary peculiarly. It is acceptable for Christian women to wear hats in church, but disrespectful for men to wear them. Not so with Conservative or Orthodox Jews, who would find it disrespectful for men not to cover their heads with a yarmulke when in a synagogue.
New generation, new rules
Escondido resident Jim Butkis, 59, always wears one of his 70 hats when going out and says he never has a problem remembering the rules.
"I instinctively follow it," he said about hat etiquette. "It wouldn't occur to me to wear a hat inside. It always surprises me when I see someone wearing a baseball cap in a relatively good restaurant."
Eric Leiser of San Diego, 20 and an employee at Villagehatshop.com, loves wearing classic hats, but he doesn't see much sense in following rules he sees as archaic.
"I go to church and I get these looks, and I don't think it's imagined," he said. "That's a little weird, because it's 2002.
"I get a little uncomfortable, and sometimes I'll take the hat off and sometimes I won't." Leiser said he won't wear a hat if he goes to other churches because he's wary of how people might react, however.
"I wouldn't wear it on a first date," Leiser said. "I wouldn't take it off in a restaurant, but maybe if it's at the Ritz Hotel, I would."
Not everybody is as lenient about hat etiquette. Leiser said his father, an accountant who works in Escondido, has told him he would not even wear a hat on casual Fridays.
There is one piece of hat etiquette Leiser still finds useful.
"A lot of times if I meet somebody, I'll do this because it's cool," he said, touching the brim of his gray fedora-like hat.
Classic rules
For people who want to brush up on etiquette before going out with a hat, numerous books and Web sites are available.
Advice from such etiquette sages as Amy Vanderbilt and Emily Post: Post is quoted as saying in 1959: "It is impossible for a hatless woman to be chic." She added that it is incorrect to wear a hat with an evening dress, however.
Hats can be worn to theaters or concerts, but people should remove them if they are blocking anyone's view.
Hat-wearers must be careful when putting something on the hatband, by the way. Anything put on the band of a man's hat must be on the left side, and anything on a woman's hatband must be on the right.
Amy Vanderbilt gave women the choice about whether to wear hats to outdoor parties and weddings in her 1963 "New Complete Book of Etiquette." Women should keep their hats on in homes holding christenings, weddings and funerals, because in those occasions the house is treated as if it were a house of worship, she said.
Women should not remove hats that go with dinner suits or dinner dresses throughout the evening. Miss Manners notes that daytime hats must be doffed at dusk.
If that is confusing, consider the rules Emily Post lays out for men who encounter women in elevators. A gentleman must take off his hat when a woman enters an elevator in an apartment building or a hotel, as those are considered dwellings. He puts it on again in the hall, because a public corridor is like a street. In public buildings, however, the elevator is also considered public, and the hat can stay on.
In Post's "Etiquette: The Blue Book of Social Usage" from 1959, she wrote that men tip or lift their hat only to strangers, not to friends, although a man would lift the hat if he encountered his wife. A hat also is tipped to a woman when passing in a narrow space or when the man speaks to her. If a man runs into a female acquaintance, he must take his hat off when talking to her, but can put it back on if they start walking.
Butkis said he remembers his grandfather had one big rule about tipping hats: Just don't do it to men.
"If you look at some of the old, old cowboy movies, like Tom Mix, if they'd really want to insult somebody, they'd tip their hat at them," he said. "My grandfather would say it's akin to calling them a woman."
One open letter
I have a sensible hat. It keeps the sun out of my eyes, it dont get bogged down with heat like a wool cap would. It doesn't give me silly looking hat hair like you beanie folks. And yet you smirk. With your sweaty gloriousness and your funny looking hair. You smirk cause I dress differently. Because I try to pull back a little nostalgia into our lives. Posh tosh. You dont care. You dress exactly the same everyday. T shirt to the knees, Pants down to the backs of your kneees, a pair of boxers and two pairs of basketball shorts. Gotta have that close cropped hair with your two tone stripe and your name engraved in the back of your hair. You look at yourself in the mirror and you look at yourself good. Who's the funny looking one now? The kid who sports the fashion which has been around for decades? Or that new humbly jumbly stuff involving sweatshirts with random ugly designs and tshirts with tin foil stuck to it? Yeah, you look like a bum I saw once in Oakland. I swear to god the thing was wearing a bright orange, purple and green jacket and tinfoil pants. Lord knows you look just like them.
Zach
Surviving Fog
Sure, the whites pretty much dominated, but at this day and age, i'm sure we all can agree that a caste system is in good due order. As my punctuation. I may be racist, but i'm all for isolating the ghetto continuation people. Somehow, rappers show that not being musically inclined is somehow being musical and also being ghetto means a great life! What a load of bull honkey. In the 13 years of being a musician, I was trained to be understanding, educated, and to read music. Sure I didnt learn, but a good ear can help. If you ask any rapper to do a piece in compound meter, they'd just tell you to get the f*** out of their face before they pop a cap in yo' ass. They're just covering up the fact that they dont know jack.
On prom now. Every prom i've been to has involved two things, rap music and fuck dancing. My school seriously has killed social dances for me. In its entirety. I cant stand rap, you cant dance to it without looking like you're in the middle of sexual intercourse. Is that what school is trying to promote? Having sex while listening to music where every other word is damn, bitch, ho or fuck? If I had the option, I wouldn't go to these things. But I know, the key to a healthy life is a healthy relationship with people. Even if it means looking like an ass while dancing like an ass to music that sounds like it came out of an ass's ass.
I mean seriously, if you look at the senior demographic of my school. I would say about 24% acts ghetto, 40% acts normal, 20 percent is into indie and rock, 10 percent loves heavy metal and punk, 5 percent is emo and 1 percent is totally unsociable. So if only about 24 percent listens to rap, enjoys rap and whatnot, that's not a majority is it hm? And yet, they have complete dominance at proms and dances where everything is "buttfuck bizitches all night long. yo yo yo"
Graaah
Lately... some notes
- I admit it. I dont give a damn about proper nouns and capitals when it comes to myspace, facebook, AIM, MSN and whatnot. I decided apparently subconsciously, to give up all hope of correct grammar and spelling.
- I buy too many hats. In the past month, I've already bought two new hats. The new era fitted cap from Quicksilver and the YoungAn panama hat. I like the panama, but it's slightly damaged. But it looks very good on me.
- I havent been posting as much. Yes I know. Last month was an awesome posting month since I tried to compete with the number of posts to what day of the month it was. This month, a mere piddly single digit number.
- Unless I decide to crank out 10 posts tonight and tomorrow.
- I am going to Cal. UC Berkeley baby. I just got my calmail today too.
- I found a mattress on the ground in SF today. I was tempted to jump on it.
- Last week, I actually paid for *cough* you know. That stuff. On the internet. To watch. Yeah... Well I feel awkward now. Like there's nothing else to do at night.
April 23, 2007
Scholarship Clamitic Canundrum!
Pick myself up, dust myself off
1. I visited my two final college choices. Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. It was damned nice and I was on the verge of going there.
2. I visited Cal after that. I then decided to go to Cal.
3. I'm still confused on where to go (at that point)
4. I packed and left for NYC!
5. I came home. Didnt do any homework.
6. New compooper. Lost my old bookmarks
7. Paid for online book services for the first time. (blah)
8. Registered to attend cal
9 Still havent rejected CP