So tonight I signed up as a volunteer for the Kerry-Edwards campaign. I'm getting ahead of myself, though.

One criticism frequently leveled at many announcing their intention to vote for Kerry is "you don't know anything about the man! You're just voting for anybody but Bush!" You know what? I consider that an entirely valid criticism that people should consider. I've begun to take voting quite seriously; after all, (arguments as to whether Bush actually won the last election aside) look what a mess of things an administration can make in four years. There's no way in hell I'd vote for Kerry if I wasn't responsible enough to examine the man's proposals, platforms, and ideals and conclude that he's likely to make things better instead of worse. I'm not voting against anyone; I'm voting for what I perceive to be a better America. Please do the same. Here, I'll make it easy for you: go educate yourselves.

Onward to the volunteering issue: obviously this is shaping up to be an election for which people harbor passionate feelings. I'll admit to already being especially surprised at how vocal people of my own generation have been regarding this. There literally hasn't been a day in the past month in which I haven't seen political content on my friends page alone. Politics comes up in my private conversations daily. Everyone seems to have something to say, an article to share, or some other form of input on the matter. I think involvement of *any* kind is a great thing,as this can't be a country of the people without those same people being willing to acquaint themselves with the issues, form opinions, and become involved.

Here's a non-partisan request: there's an immensely important form of input everyone could and should exercise. Go educate yourselves on the issues/candidates and cast a vote in November. I don't care for whom you're voting; just go and do it. I may not agree with you on the candidates you endorse or the poltical stances you hold, but the fact that you're willing to vote tells me something. It tells me you're a person that cares about in what direction this country is heading and what happens to it and all the people therein. Again, I may not agree with what you think is best for America, but I can respect that you care about it period.

Rerailing to Kerry volunteering: everyone seems to be discussing these days how the outcome of this election is going to prove especially pivotal to the future course of America. I wondered tonight if anyone that says that really stops to consider the seriousness of that statement. Does it mean anytthing to people or is it just a trendy bandwagon for people to hop upon for a quick high of righteous indignation? Does it mean anything to me? Sure, I read articles daily, keep abreast of current events, and form opinions culled from a consideration of as many perspectives as possible; that's more than a lot of people are doing. I'm marking my calendar, resolving to vote, and even posting in my little blog. One thing I realized, however, was that I haven't checked to see if there's anything else I could possibly do. If I really felt that this election will prove so pivotal and if I'm so dedicated to seeing Kerry elected... why wouldn't I do all that I could? What's the harm in at least checking and saying "hey, here I am; can I do anything?"

Therefore, I'm now signed up as a Kerry campaign volunteer and I've found there are a few things I can do. One of those is recruiting other volunteers via email. I ask your utmost apologies if you feel like I'm spamming you; to my knowledge I'm *not* signing you up for a repeated mailing list, but if you're still miffed, simply tell me and I'll never pester you with something like this again. I just know that several people in my acquaintance seem to feel as passionately about electing Kerry as I and I just want to give you the opportunity to see if there's anything else you could possibly do. Many of you are quite articulate; volunteers have access to a weekly topic/research-style guide for writing brief (200-word) letters to the editors of local papers. You can host public/private pro-Kerry events; in fact I'd like for some of you Tuscaloosa people to consider hosting/planning a Convention Party, where we simply gather together, watch Kerry accept the nomination and discuss his platform, discuss, and hang out. I also think they're looking for people to participate in web projects, which might interest some of you programmers. Of course by signing up you'll be able to keep abreast of Kerry events/projects to attend and/or in which to volunteer. At the least you could sign up for email notifications about the campaign (separately from signing up as a volunteer). Whether I'm emailing you or not, check it out here and sign up if you'd like.

Now, back to non-partisanship, specifically a non-partisan discussion on partisanship. It's one thing to be passionate about the upcoming election; it's quite another to be bitterly partisan about it. I think what I've said previously on the subject is the best thing I could ever say about politics then and now. I hear people that agree with any point Michael Moore has made denounced as dupes of the Liberal Media and immature, extremist nutjobs. I hear anyone agreeing with any sort of conservative view on the subject labeled as a victim of the brainwashing of the sprawling Right Wing Machine. I hear all Democrats lumped together as dangerously naive, completely immoral Liberals that want to burn your church and kill your babies. I see all Republicans painted into a single portrait of soulless suits that want to run you over with a Jesus-fish emblazoned SUV while sending your children off to war. I hear conservatives that sound as if they'd like nothing more to lock up any "subversives" and liberals who sound as if they'd like nothing more than to "reeducate" anyone disagreeing with their "truth" in ways that would make China recoil. Where's the respect for freedom of speech?

Therein lies the problem. When you start seeing people as abstract concepts, puppets, or political opinions instead of people, it's a lot easier to hate Them, The Other Side, The Opposition, The Enemy. What an easy progression of terms with catastrophic results. Here's something to consider: that Republican, Democrat, Liberal, or Conservative you so despise? They're a human being just like you, with as much capacity for intellect, reason, analysis, compassion, and love as you. Many, if not most of them vote the way they do because they genuinely care for this country; they believe what they believe because they honestly think, after examining an issue as an individual, that their belief is correct. I may think an individual is misguided and their beliefs misinformed; I might even find those beliefs at the least narrowminded and at the most personally repugnant. I will not, however, judge someone as being deficient as a person simply because of what they believe and say. I have not walked in their shoes, lived their life, or thought their thoughts; I cannot and will not judge.

Let me tell you about the "better America" for which I'm working and casting my vote. It's not a Fundamentalist Christian theocracy. It's not a Liberal Paradise where everyone agress on every single social issue. This is the best America I know: I'm moderately liberal, agnostic, pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-economic reform. My main group of friends are decidedly Christian conservatives. I don't like some of the things they have to say. They don't like some of the things I have to say. Yet, at the end of the day none of this prevents us from grabbing a few drinks together and knowing that we're good people, no matter the party to which we belong. My America has plenty enough room for everyone.

Current Mood: accomplished

( I said... )

Current Mood: amused

Or: U.S. News and World Report Rankings Say California Owns The Next Five-Six Years Of My Life

University of Virginia- December 3
University of Washington- January 2
Stanford University- December 14
UCLA- December 15
University of California-Berkeley- December 15
Duke University- (no GRE required)- December 1
University of Pennsylvania- December 15
UC-Santa Cruz- December 15
UC-Irvine- January 15
UC-Davis- December 15
University of Indiana-Boomington- January 15
NYU- December 15
University of Wisconsin-Madison- December 15
University of Texas-Austin- January 2
University of Colorado-Boulder- January 15
University of Arizona- January 15
University of Oregon- January 15

...and so many more to be added later.  I'm sick of looking at schools right now.  Why?  Because... because...

I THOUGHT I WAS DONE WITH FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY AND I'M NOT!!!  EVERYTHING SHOULD BE STUDIED IN ENGLISH!!!  DAMN FOREIGNERS!!!< /mostly-joking-yet-frustrated-jingoism>

Current Mood: anxious

Just a friendly reminder:



Imagine how amused I was to idle down the road and find this distant sign read not YARD SALE or PRODUCE or BLUEBERRIES as so many signs in the South do; no, this one read DEATH. Yes, DEATH, in stark, bold letters. I figured out in a few moments that there was probably a wake at a nearby house... couldn't it have just said WAKE, though? No, we have to be simple and horrendously to the point. DEATH.

Just remember, folks, if you're feeling down just go for a drive on a nice, sunny day and find DEATH waiting for you.

Sometimes I love living in the South. :D

Edit in response to IM query: No, I didn't steal this sign... but I did think about it. Yes, I have no shame.

Current Mood: amused

Graduate School Checklist
1. Take the damn GRE

2. Investigate prospective schools/faculty/financial aid

2a. Prospective schools: Ucal-Berkeley, Ucal-Irvine, Stanford, Yale, Uni-Iowa, Uni-Washington, Uni-Virginia, NYU, Duke, most likely others

2b. Investigate specializations: hypermodern lit(?), Victorian lit, gender studies in lit, modern British lit, pop culture as text(?), Duke's lit program

3. Letters of recommendation (Harold Weber, Tim Francisco, John Allison, Bebe Barefoot, Deneen Senasi, Peter Logan, Dwight Eddins)

4. Acceptance

5. Find housing

Current Mood: accomplished

Alright, the fact that I just caught myself talking to myself means I should really get out of the house. I take the absence of a call from Mom that she's not coming in until Sunday, which is when Dad will return as well. I definitely have to go somewhere just to have a change of environment from the non-sights, creaks, and utter lack of human contact of this house.

Although I do have to admit being home alone for days on end has its advantages. For instance, I can have an Outkast Dance Party of One anytime I damn well please and not feel the least bit embarrassed. No, I won't post pictures. Also, these are probably the only conditions where a tableau of myself au natural, relaxing on the couch, shotgun at my feet, and watching Sportscenter (or Buffy) might present itself. HELL no, I'm definitely not posting pictures of that. Yes, some of you can keep your assorted expressions of relief to yourselves.

I definitely need to go buy some more groceries. Maybe I'll go out looking for interesting pictures. I'll definitely clean the house. Maybe I'll pick a random road and see where it leads. Maybe I'll drive to Georgia just because I can.

Right. I'm listing these things aloud. I'm getting out of here, people.

Current Mood: bored

Today I drove by my high school for probably the first time in a year and a half. It seems strange to me that it had been so long... I literally live seven minutes away from the school (five given a hurry and a lack of local police) but I never go toward Sylvania or Henegar anymore. It's still a strange feeling to have spent all my formative years in both places and to now have a lack of any reason to visit either place. Hell, the only real reason I have to leave the house while staying here is groceries. Needless to say I understand the word exile now. This gives one plenty of time to discover many useful things, such as it's entirely possible to stealth kill every enemy on each Combat Simulation level of 007: Everything Or Nothing. Rerailment: I had to go pay the sanitation bill at the Sylvania Town Hall (Mom's in Auburn helping out there and Dad's currently off on a job) and I suppose it was my dream last night that prompted me to make the school drive on my return trip.

Oh yes, kids, I had a dream and my dream (as I remember it) was this: I was back in high school and at a football game. Suddenly I noticed a commotion (well, one different from the usual commotion at a Southern high school football game). Zombies! The scene was complete bedlam as people grappled with the undead but were inevitably bitten and turned. Naturally, I decided to get the hell out of dodge and fled to my car (taking someone undefined along with me). Zombified versions of two girls I had dated in high school gave chase (the hostility being odd since I'm still on good terms with the both of them). The Unidentified Sidekick and I hopped into my car, ran those two zombies over in order to slow their pursuit, and drove to the school. We burst through the back entrance of the school and proceeded to have the typical fight-through-the-school-hallways-to-an-exit scene. Of course we found ourselves confronted on the front lawn of the school by the Dead Exes (does anyone else think that would make a cool band name?) and achieving a very narrow escape highlighted by the very vivid sequence of barely holding a zombie's gnashing teeth inches away from my neck as it slobbered blood and spittle upon my face. I broke its neck and continued wrenching its head around until I tore it from the shoulders as my Unidentified Comrade disabled Ex #2. We then decided to drive to Canada (no fucking kidding, in my dream I saw a zoomed-out map of the USA with a red line tracking our northward progress) to escape the outbreak.

Strangely enough said dream had me thinking about high school for the majority of the day. Said line of thinking has led me to a series of questions that I'm very much curious to see how you old-timers answer. I'm certain I (or someone else) has asked these questions before in a post, but it might be interesting to see how (if any) the answers have changed or just to see them all over again. I'll answer the questions myself tomorrow in order to be fair.

1)Who were you in high school? What was your personality like? What did you do? What did you think of school? What music did you like? What were your aspirations? etc.

2)How would you describe your high school experience?

3)What did you expect college/life after high school to be like? What were your plans? Has it turned out anything like you expected?

4)How is the person you are different from the person you were?

Current Mood: curious

What an amazingly sober weekend from which I've just returned. I really wasn't feeling up for a proper bout of drinking and if one can't do it properly, then why bother doing it at all? Besides, as evidenced by the following random conversational samplings, the only difference between my sober and drunk selves is that the latter displays remarkably better coordination.
( What I Bring to the Conversational Table )

Next, let's witness what happens when everyone pitches in:
(Scene: Milo's Hamburgers, Tuscaloosa, AL)
Derek: I never took you for an apple pie kind of guy.
Me: Hell yeah, I love these things. I'm all for old-fashioned American values, like apple pie, apple pie, and apple pie.
Podunk: Eating apple pie lets the terrorists win.
Drew: And the Mormons. (note: we'd just been discussing the comedic value of the Book of Mormon movie)
Someone: Mormons eating apple pie lets the terrorists win.
Someone else: Terrorists eating apple pie lets the Mormons win.
Someone: Apple pie eating Mormons lets the terrorists win.
Someone else: Mormons eating terrorists lets the apple pie win.
Me: THE WINNER!

ITEM!: The first thing I said after arriving home and hearing my sister had wrecked her moped and broken her arm was "Well, I know someone who won't be giving me anymore grief about being a bad driver."

ITEM!: Let me inform you that the worst place to have a mouth ulcer is at the bottom of your cheek, right next to the lower region of the gums (and therefore all those wonderful nerves and such). The entire left side of my face and my back molars hurt. Of course my solution is to tongue the hell out of it/poke it occasionally with a toothpick until my eyes water and my nose runs because a)it's an intense sensation not at all bad once one overrides a natural aversion to it and b)aggravating it makes the constant, normal pain go almost unnoticed.

Alright, I'm done.

Current Mood: blank
Current Music: There's No Home For You Here- The White Stripes

One last post (since I'm bored) before I hit the road and leave Auburn (and sobriety) far, far behind.

First up are a series of random lists of fives of my own devising that are seriously going to out me as a hopeless geek.

( To The Five Burroughs )

I find the standard mode of political debate between standard Americans to be fairly amusing. I mean, we can stand proud knowing that instead of critiquing political platforms, the far-range impact of laws/policies, and attempting to understand other view points, we reduce the issues to "HAY GUYZ KURRY LOOKS LIEK LURCH LOLOLLOL" or "OMGWTF BUSH LOOK S LIKE TEH CHIMPO HAHAHAHAHA" or calling each other Nazis and fascists and the like. I suggest we start such a high-brow, seriously informed debate here. Best comment gets a prize. I'll start.

BUSH ALMOST RHYMS WITH DOOSH LOLOLHEHEH

Current Mood: amused

There are few things I enjoy more than accelerating to 90 MPH while blasting Sympathy for the Devil from my car.

I'm gone, kids. I'm Tuscaloosa-bound via a one day stop in Auburn to see family. I'll be in town until my money runs out, as usual.

Of course, I couldn't leave you wonderful people without something inspirational! I leave you with this moving message of one Coach Paul "Bear" Bryant, Alabama legend, as recorded on that damn video they show before every home game:
( Words By Which To Live )
God bless that man.

I'm off! *begins to sing under my breath*
Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint
(who who, who who)

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
(woo woo)
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I'll lay your soul to waste, um yeah

Current Mood: awake

There is a question of great import that most of you must answer!
( This Is One Of Those Things You Should Really Stop and Consider )

Current Mood: mischievous

I think... I think I'm dying.

Et tu, 12" meatball sub?

If I don't make it through the night, someone swear a blood oath of vengeance on my grave against the Subway franchise in general and the Rainsville, AL location in particular. While you're at it, kill off that smug bastard Jarrod, too. Never did like him. Fran Drescher, too. They must perish to appease my spirit. Swear it or I'll haunt you all; if you think I'm as annoying as fuck right now, how much more so do you think I'll be if I'm incorporeal and present 24/7?

I'm incoherent and terribly nauseous, which is to say the nausea is out of the ordinary. :( *heaves*

Current Mood: sick
Current Music: go toward... the light... no, the one on the left... OTHER left... idiot

This weekend I make my triumphant return to Tuscaloosa; I have loved ones to see.
( I'm Sorry I've Been Away So Long )
Oh, how I've missed you all so much!

Current Mood: amused

I let myself become lost in a cornfield today. For some it's a harrowing experience, but I personally enjoy it; there's a peculiar comfort in stepping outside the world I know by stepping into a seemingly infinite sea of bladed green, directionless and so far away from anything and everything. Sometimes I envy the corn; I wonder what it would be like to stretch my arms sunward and immediately take root, to be dumb and dreamless for a season.

Current Mood: awake

So tired. Didn't really sleep today. More like a continuous series of interruptions of short naps. Some what delirious. But I did manage to find a political scoop:

What REALLY Happened During Saddam's First Hearing

This is one of those things that I'm jealous of not having wasted the time to conceive/execute first.

Ye gods, I feel rough. Sleep now, replies later. G'night, all.

Current Mood: tired

One day when I'm old, I hope I'll be sitting across from an old friend playing bingo like old people tend to do. However, instead of yelling "Bingo!" I'll yell "Parcheezi!" The next time I'll yell "Yahtzee!" My friend will catch on; he'll bingo and yell "Marco Polo!" We'll laugh and the absurd exchange will continue. "Uno!" "Rummy!" "Sorry!" Finally, my friend will yell out "Peek-a-Boo!" and I'll scream and stab him in the face.

I always hated that fucking game when I was a child. :D

Current Mood: amused

DAMN! THIS IS A TASTY BURGER!

Current Mood: awake

bogarted from nowherezen:

Stop whatever you're doing right now, clear your schedule, watch this, and laugh for the next few hours.

I swear, I can't stop laughing. These people are bloody brilliant.

Also for your amusement:
Monty Python alum Eric Idle's The FCC Song
March of the Sinister Ducks

Edit: Has anyone seen the video for Stone Temple Roses Guns Temple Pilots Velvet Revolver's "Slither"? Hey, Scott Weiland, Iggy Pop called and he wants his pants back. Roll around in some glass and maybe then we'll talk, you fucking ponce.

Current Mood: amused

An actual response to the question "Does Don Siegelman have a future in Alabama politics?" as printed in our local paper, the Times Journal:

"It's all political between Democrats and Republicans, so I suspect he will have a future."

Heh.
Hehe.
Hehehe.
Hrrrrrrrrr.
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.

My local paper makes me want to shoot myself locals have an ice cream cone.

Current Mood: depressed

Disclaimer: In reality I'm the furthest thing from a misogynist that you'll ever run across and I certainly have no love for generalizations; however, I've never run across a bit of absurdist dialogue that I've found unfit to utter. Hopefully no chicks₁ will get their panties in a wad₂ over this.

Context: Phillip and I were jokingly discussing the pros and cons of viewing The Stepford Wives in the company of women.
( Watch As I Employ the Logic of Our Finest Cable News Channel Pundits! )

₁A joke! A joke!
₂Look! Another one!

Current Mood: awake