Well, the results are in... I'm a socialist:

You are a Social Liberal (71% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (20% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

I think I’m going to enjoy this new Doctor (the newest generation in the television series on the BBC, Doctor, Who).

The writer seem to have a lot of great stuff in store—Sarah Jane Smith from the Tom Baker days is supposedly coming back with the robot dog, K-9, and apparently, Anthony Head (Giles from Buffy) is going to guest star! Yay!

Jeez, I’m such a geek.

So I think I'm going to cross the line into metrosexuality and carry a man bag.

As you can see to the right, I went to Old Navy and bought a messenger bag. it is a little too big to be a full blown, leather man bag that costs an arm and a leg, but it can hold notebooks and pens and my iPod, and it was $15. I think it was worth it.

After I graduate and have to go out to a real job all the time, I'm going to need something to put all my crap in. And my book bag is rather gigantic, and that is unwieldy and, frankly, unattractive.

So to the man bag I go.

Also, in the vein of one Ashley Meyers of OrganizeFISH fame, I'm going to list some of the things I did today:

-I went to Office Depot, Kinko's, United Art and Supply, and a scrapbooking store looking for supplies to compile a clippings portfolio.
-At Office Depot, I found: (drummroll, please...) A COLLEGE-RULED COMPOSITION NOTEBOOK WITH ROUNDED CORNERS! The perfect combination of nostalgic school supplies with modern intellectualism is now mine!
-Katie and I tried the new Frescata's at Wendy's. Eh.
-I filled my man bag with stuff, and
-I organized my Buddy List on iChat. Back in the old days when Katie and I were exploring our relationship online, she had 18 diff'ernt screen names. Wow.

I'm thinking about doing something different with my blog. I want the old typography back, but I want to keep this banner image. Any suggestions?

Oh—by the way, while the Witnessing Life site is down while Aiden re-creates it, I'm trying to keep a blog about podcasting and modern journalism. Click here to see it. Please let me know if you 'd be interested in contributing.

Look, I’m a writer.
I can write you up a tree, put words on
[INSERT: PAPER]
until your head spins.

Watch me closely:
I can make this stanza rhyme (mostly).

And I paid all this $$$
For a computer that can put your damn Dell to shame
Beautiful words will come out of my fingertips and change your life.
I can make you sigh, dreamy and romantic-like.
Or, I can make you angry at the world.
Or maybe cry like a baby.

BUT...

Not right now. Boston Legal is on.
Not right now. I need to read my blogs.
Not right now. I want to nap.
Not right now. I have to work on the website (is it finished?)
Not right now. I have to work on my final project (is it started?)
Not right now.

Maybe I’ll write later.

Hopefully before it...s... too........

..

Over the past couple of days, Katie and I were watching TV, which is nothing new. But as they start promo’ing shows to hit the small screens over the summer, I am becoming increasingly aware of the complete crap that seem to be coming out of the industry.

TV Land’s The Poocharelli’s is one. Taglines, “At last! The sitcom that can really sit!” This seems like a really, really bad idea. Seriously. It is a live action all-dog casted sitcom. Do they talk? I don’t know. What is the premise? I don’t know.

We were laying on the bed, Sachen on my chest for the man-time, and a promo for this show comes on. I actually got mad about it. First I exclaim, “The Poocharelli’s?” Then, as it hit me, I actually yelled, “What the hell is the Poocharelli’s!?!”

At the risk of sounding like a friend of mine who shall remain unnamed (Here’s a hint: Her name rhymes with Batie Casey), I got really pissed off at the television.


Tonight, as Katie and I were tentatively watching Dog: The Bounty Hunter on A&E (not a great show), they promoed a new show due out over the summer. It’s called God or the Girl. From what we could tell about the commercial, it is one of those -one-man-left-standing show featuring young men who are trying to become priests. The producers bring attractive women on the set and try to tempt them away from the cloth to become one of us sex-having schleps that don’t care to be priests.

Seriously, what the fuck is that? I was already disillusioned with Cheaters, a show that seems to encourage partners to cheat on each other than present the other partner with the evidence, often video-taped. How awful is that? This one, it seems, is even worse.

And what is that last priest going to do? Go on to his parish and stand at the pulpit and tell God and his parisoners that “I didn’t cave in to the temptation of sin! In fact, you can see for yourself at 10/9 central, only on A&E!”

I’m going to produce a television show, too. In fact, mine is going to be called Concentration (camp). It’s a reality TV show that takes place at a compound, and people will just be dying to get on the show.

It’ll probably make millions.

I’ve learnt a neat trick. Take a look at the banner at the top of this blog.

Then refresh your browser.

Then again.

Then again.

Then bow to my awesomeness.

I feel like an ass when I say, this, but I believe that literary criticism as it exists today is complete bullshit.

I’ve tried to re-write my paper assigned in my 17th century Brit Lit class, but it just isn’t effective. Dr. Stapleton will still see that I don’t respect literary criticism, and that I think of it almost entirely consisting of über-intellectuals who are engaged in a literary version of a pissing contest.

“Haha, look,” Dr. J.L.T. Smythe from Snobsworth University once said while reading his favorite book of poetry, “I see that this metaphor is misaligned! I must write eighty pages on it and send it to the editor of Misaligned Metaphors: A journal of critiques, suggestions, and other general complaints.

You PINHEAD,” wrote Dr. Jamie Petty from The Academy for Hot Air Production in response. “Can’t you see you got it all wrong? In fact, YOU are a sucky-ass writer. Now, I write ONE HUNDRED and eighty pages about how much you don’t know!”

It’s ironic, though—Dr. Stapleton knows I don’t take it seriously. When we met to discuss the paper revisions (everyone had to revise), he told me as much.

“Andy,” he said, sounding very much like Garrison Keillor, “try not to sound so glib. You need to take this seriously. You need to see this poem as life.”

And I’ve tried. Lord, I’ve tried. It just doesn’t work. It’s a nice poem, it really is! It is just that I see it for what it is—a poem. It is not life. The nymph never really lived, the fawn wasn’t shot by “wanton troopers”—none of it actually happened.

What’s more, is that not every little thing symbolizes something else! I’m sure Andrew Marvell didn’t sit down to write this poem hundreds of years ago and think, “Hmm... what can I do to make people read this poem... This batch of roses... I think that people should think that the nymph has lost her virginity, because she has roses in her garden! Brilliant!”

Sometimes, Mr. Marvell and Dr. Stapleton, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Or, to switch to a different quote, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Why didn’t I ever switch to an English writing major? Well, I like to read the books and the poems. I like to discuss them, too. But no one ever told me about literary criticism.

For another installment in our Scientology watch...

This is from NPR's blog, Mixed Signals. You can find a link to the blog on the right.

Here's the post:


Read it. It is brilliant. And fearless.