Monday, September 22 (Morning) - I compose a post whining about the arrogance of Gattaca Software, an infamously bad employer that I not only don't care to work for, but wants me to beg for a job.

Monday, September 22 (Afternoon) - A company called TAG calls me about a job opening. I was initially excited. I agreed to an interview the next day. He said I was overqualified for the position and he wanted it filled right away (the interview, he said, was mostly a formality). I'd recalled applying for them with four others on Thursday, but remembered little about them. Since I hadn't heard of them, I figured they were probably up in Dallas (I applied to two jobs in Dallas, two in Houston, and one in Austin).

I go back and see which job they were offering and ta-da, they're in Austin.

"Oh crap!"

As per my policy, I sent them my "Austin resume" with a local address. Most employers won't call back if they don't think you're local and since I have a place to live in Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston, I apply to each of them locally.

Except... the friend who lives there moved to Alabama.

"Oh crap!!!"

So I spend the morning scrambling to find out if there is anyone's couch I can sleep on for the three month tenure of the position. I have one friend in North Austin and another in San Marcos. Since the job is on the south side and the San Marcos friend is among my very best, I call him first.

"Dude, you can't sleep on the couch..." he says.

Crud.

"We've got a spare bedroom."

Yeehaw! That's perfect. I'd love to live with said friend for a few months. That'd be not only practical, but downright awesome.

That's about when I knew that I wasn't going to get the job.

Tuesday, September 23 (Morning) - TAG called and cancelled the interview. Apparently there was some sort of aptitude test I am supposed to take. It's apparently not a conditional factor of employment, but simply paperwork to be shuffled. Unfortunately, their client (I found out that TAG is a recruiting firm) didn't have them available. He said he was aiming for the end of the week, but it would take the test a couple weeks or so to come in. I was too tired to make sense of this except to think:

Bummer.

Tuesday, September 23 (Afternoon) - The Gattaca Software Company called and informed me that they do have an opening for me as a network technician. The more they explained it, the more it sounded like the job my roommate has with them (he got the spot with less experience and without a college degree... what did I get by going to college again?)

We lined up an interview for Thursday (25th) afternoon. I use the word "interview" lightly, as I was only going in to give blood, urine, and hair samples take an IQ test.

Thursday, September 25 (Afternoon) - I went in to Gattaca Software's corporate headquarters for my test. I had to fill out a basic application. I nervously do. Not nervous because I have something to hide, mind you, but because I was afraid to make any mistakes and have to erase them. I can just imagine the GSC scientists looking over the document:

John: "There is a smudge of an erasermark over his name. I don't believe that we want to hire someone that doesn't even know their own name. DENIED!"
Jim: "His 'm' in Company looks an awful lot like an 'n'. I don't believe we want to hire anyone that makes any mistakes ever."
John: "So right, Jim, or anyone that displays any semblence of being human at all..."

The test washeavily timed. I hate heavily timed test. My mind works slow, but thorough. I gave it my best and came away thinking that I probably did quite well.

Friday, September 26 (Afternoon) - I called up TAG to get some clarifications on the things I was too drowsy to understand before. He says that their client is likely to forego the test. He's awaiting instruction on how to preceed. He takes a look at my resume and says that I am more than perfect for the job. He told me to call them back if I hadn't heard from him in a couple of days. Employment through TAG started looking optomistic again.

Monday, September 29 (Afternoon) - Gattaca called again. It was a different person than before that explained to me everything that I already knew about the job. She asked when I might be able to come in for an interview. I made one at the next available appointment, Tuesday morning.

Tuesday, September 30 (Morning) - I went in and interview with a woman who looks quite a bit like Liv Tyler. I believe that I did remarkably well with it, which is great considering that interviews are not my strongsuit (and I was working on little sleep). After I finished with that, she told me that I had another round of tests to take: Mental acuity, current events, mechanical knowledge, and a personality profiling test.

When I finished with that, they had me fill out a second job application, this time with essay questions:

"When have you blown it big time and how did you react to your fuck-up?"

"What do you do in your spare time?"

"Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?"

"Are you a fugitive from justice in any American states? (Canada also included)"

"Have you ever sold drugs?"

"If so, how much?"

"If not, why not?"

I finished the test and came home.

Tuesday, September 30 (Afternoon) - I called TAG again. They told me that they haven't heard back from their client yet. They're busy in the process of mass layoffs (presumably in favor of hiring temporary help, like me!).

Unlike certain journalists with an anti-male agenda and strong indifference to football, certain other journalists will at least put the incident in context by explaining who was playing and why someone flew off the deep end.

A Pinson man, upset over Alabama's double overtime loss to Arkansas, held a gun to his son's head and pulled the trigger shortly after Saturday's game ended, authorities said.

The bullet narrowly missed 20-year-old Seth Logan, who now acknowledges he had picked the wrong moment to ask his dad for a car, sheriff's spokesman Deputy Randy Christian said Monday.

I read about that game. Must have been tough for an Alabama fan to endure.

Update: D'oh, forgot to mention that I got the link from Warliberal. Bad Alex.

Heard this before?

After more than a decade of A-grade economic performance and rising prosperity, the question a lot of people are asking is: if we're so rich, why aren't we happy? Tanner's answer is that developments in the modern world - not just economic reforms, but changing technology and our move to more liberated, individualistic lives - are causing our relationships to break down.

Humans are social beings. Our lives have meaning essentially in the context of our relationships with other human beings. So relationships are central to the wellbeing of individuals and society as a whole.

I've heard the argument before. It's a not-atypical screed against materialism and how it eats away at our souls and all that tired jazz.

As a generally free-market capitalist, I reject the notion that this is all "inherent" in the capitalist system. As a techie, I reject the notion that the technology pulls us apart. I'd go a step further and say that capitalism has, in many ways, increased the quantity and the quality of time families spend together.

The idea that capitalism is inherently isolating hails all the way back to Marx who repeatedly stressed the alienation of man from himself, his peers, and his labor. The authors of both the article and the book are both liberal sorts, so while they may not be Marxist, they are at least sympathetic to at least the problems that he identifies.

In some ways, commerce brings us together. It takes me out to the store, where I'll greet the vendor and maybe share a word with him while we wait for my credit card to clear. When I have a job, it gets me to this place where I work with other people towards a common goal. At my last job, I attended a couple of trade shows where we talked with competitors. We were generally friendly and, being in the same business, had a lot to talk about.

Of course, Gittins would argue that this doesn't qualify as "quality time." As compared to family and friend time, generally not, but it's just about as worthwhile (and more productive in many ways) than talking about sports or the latest movie playing at the cinema.

As Gittins points out, time spent at the office does indeed cut in to family and friend time. Capitalism encourages work and work (generally) encourages people to stay away from home. If someone works an 80-hour week, they're depriving their family of quality time. In some cases, they have to work 80 hours to get by. In other cases, they don't have to but choose to because they feel pressured. In yet other cases, they don't have to but choose to so that they can afford nicer things.

"We've built a society in which we have less time for our children, less interaction with our neighbours, less involvement in the community, and less participation in collective activities," he says. "Longer working hours, greater dispersion of families, more solitary entertainment options and more formalised links between government and citizens have all contributed to this pattern."

Much of the stuff we buy - microwaves, fast food, for instance - is intended to save time. But, Tanner says, we're on a treadmill that's always imperceptibly gaining speed.

I do agree that something has been lost in the age of TV dinners, but I was raised by a stay-at-home Mom who cooked and it was generally a solitairy task. I think there is a certain romanticism attached by elements of both the left and right to the notion of a family working and playing together in some Waltonesque way.

But for most people, there is an element of choice involved. If a person is not so inclined, as likely as not they can get home before six or seven PM and the family can eat their TV dinners together. There is nothing inherent in capitalism that makes this not possible.

Except, of course, that many people don't. Some fathers (and mothers) retreat to the office either to avoid their families or in some misguided notion that they must provide to the same degree that the Joneses do.

Capitalism may encourage this mindset, which is both for good (spurs innovation) and ill (people work too long), but capitalism does not (as opposed to, say, capital-c Communism) force anyone at gunpoint to work later hours. It may entice them with goodies if they do, but at any point they can step back and say "I've worked enough here" and take whatever measures they need to in order to have a job that can provide more balance.

Before they had my brother and I, Dad chose to work for the federal government in part for that specific reason.

That's the thing about capitalism. It provides a choice. That people are often inclined to make the wrong choice is not so much a function of capitalism as it is of the way people work. Capitalism on paper is perfect, but then so is Communism and socialism. Each, however, fall prey to human tendencies and of the three, it's my belief that capitalism accomodates them the best.

One could argue that capitalism begets corporate conglomerates which then turn around and limit choice, and to a degree that's true. However, that's as much a matter of tweaking capitalism (anti-trust and anti-monopoly laws) to keep the game as fair as possible, it doesn't justify the repudiation of the entire system as it's given here.

The same can be said of technology. A computer gives someone the option of entering an isolation chamber, but itg gives the same person the option of entering a chat room or IMing someone. Far from disconnecting me, it allowed me to stay connected to some of my best friends while we lived long distances apart.

Mobile phones are another good example.

"My mobile phone might help me stay in touch, but it also interrupts face-to-face conversation and personal interaction," Tanner says. "Mobile phones can seriously detract from the quality - and quantity - of time we spend with our children."

Yeah, it does interrupt face-to-face conversation if you let it. On the other hand, it also enables it by allowing people to leave the house without having to wait around all day for a phone call.

To blame the isolation on technology is to blame the tool instead of user that's operating it.

I'm not arguing that technology is perfect and that there aren't costs, but rather that most of these costs can be minimalized by the user of they so choose. If they don't so choose, that's their choice.

The thing is, I can't entirely disagree with it.

Where I part company with the (liberal) author is in the nature of what's being lost and where the blame lies.

"Our closest and deepest relationships are being eroded by a rising tide of wider personal interaction, and by isolating involvement with individual technologies," Tanner says. "Our crowded lives are cluttered with contact but diminishing in connection."

How do you define "connection"?

Can "connection" not occur over the Internet? My experience tells me very much otherwise. Can "connection" not occur while talking business? Sports?

There are many ways of communication and I think that certain people (liberal-minded folks and women) often fail to appreciate, for instance, male-to-male conversation. Men bond by watching sports, by talking shop, discussing politics and other tangental things. We are less inclined to sit around and talk about how everything makes us feel and there's nothing wrong with that.

There's a certain dichotomy in their argument that quantity of time is being diminished and then turning around and being more concerned with quality of time. It's choice of which is quality (cooking together) and which isn't (working on a work-related project together). It's concerned with family communication when it's occuring between coworkers and peer communication when it's communication about the wrong thing (which is ill-defined).

None of this is to say that parents spend enough time with their kids or each other, but rather that the reasons they cite are more tools that people don't have to use if they don't want to and that a top-down view on what the government can do to change this (which it somehow views as being responsible for it to begin with) is the correct way to go about it.

The author of the article and book in question are both liberal-minded folks. Conservatives with the same concerns often advocate "legislating morality."

The problem is that benign and voluntary action and communications are the product of free will. Take away the free will by way of legislation and the actions become involuntarily thrust upon the people, and their attitude is rarely benign, enforcement is contentious and sporadic, and the results are unfortunate.

I take back the Rawr.

I sooooo take it back!

I just got back in front outside and I feel it. Not the mild chill that has been in the air lately, feeling a little bit (but only a little bit) cool, but real, true, earnest & sincere coolness. I even got to put on a jacket for the first time since March!

Yeeeeeehaw!!!

Then there was this complex worker dude outside. He said "Good morning."

I said "Good morning" back.

Do you know how long it's been since I've said "Good morning" to anyone and it's actually been the morning?!

Booyah!

[mumble grumble curse spit]

Looks at clock.

Clock says 7:40

[mumble grumble curse spit]

Morpheus


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla

[via Owen "Hercules" Courreges]

Has anyone else noticed their pattern in their CD collecting?

Band come out with first CD. You buy it, you really like it. You like nearly every track on it.

Band releases second CD. Three of four songs are so are propelled to being among your favorites. Three or four other songs you think are really good, but the other 4-6 are kind of lackluster.

Band releases third CD. Some of Band's best stuff is on this CD. Some tracks you can't get enough of it. Three other songs are also really noteworthy. Three of them are lackluster and three of them you wonder "What the hell were they thinking?!"

I seem to run in to this a lot. It's particularly notable when I'm burning artist CDs. I seem to cut disproportionately from the later records, but the later records also seem to get the primary spots on my burns.

Matchbox Twenty is a prime example. My favorite three tracks and my least favorite three are on the third CD. The first CD, meanwhile, is full of good stuff, but it doesn't stand out.

Same is true for Owen Temple, Dog's Eye View / Peter Stuart, Dub Miller*, Bleu Edmondson*, and Will Kimbrough*, among others probably.

(*- These artists have only released two CDs, but the trend has already started).

Anyone else noticed a similar pattern? If so, do you think it's because of:

A. The Band's first album is better all around because he's had his whole life to write the tracks or

B. We listen to the first CD over and over again (because it's all we got) and therefore gain an appreciation for each song and we don't give the loser tracks of the later CDs the same benefit of the doubt.

I should note that there are some counterexamples. They Might Be Giants has very divergent first two CDs and the quality gets more consistent later on. Phil Pritchett's third record was his all-around best.

But they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

I knew that I really shouldn't. I knew that I needed to get up at 10 at the latest. When the alarm went off, I convinced myself that it would all be okay and went back to bed.

When did I become so persuasive?!?!?!

If I'm that persuasive, convincing myself of something that is absolutely not true, why couldn't I convince all my teachers that dogs ate my homework? Why couldn't I convince Blogger to actually do what I've been needing it to do? Why can't I convince the "low HD space" warning to just go away?

Why can't I convince the sun to just move back a couple hours so I'll still be on schedule?!?!

What state I should live in.

Florida...learn more (score = 100)
Louisiana...learn more (score = 97)
Rhode Island...learn more (score = 97)
Maryland...learn more (score = 95)
Texas...learn more (score =94)
New Jersey...learn more (score = 93)
Massachusetts...learn more (score = 91)
Washington...learn more (score = 90)
South Carolina...learn more (score = 88)
Mississippi...learn more (score = 88)
Alabama...learn more (score = 86)
Georgia...learn more (score = 86)
Delaware...learn more (score = 84)
Pennsylvania...learn more (score = 83)
Connecticut...learn more (score = 83)
Virginia...learn more (score = 80)
Vermont...learn more (score = 78)
North Carolina...learn more (score = 77)
New York...learn more (score = 76)
Hawaii...learn more (score = 76)
Wisconsin...learn more (score = 75)
Tennessee...learn more (score = 74)
Nebraska...learn more (score = 72)
Michigan...learn more (score = 69)
Ohio...learn more (score = 69)
Kentucky...learn more (score = 69)
New Hampshire...learn more (score = 69)
Arkansas...learn more (score = 68)
Illinois...learn more (score = 68)
Oregon...learn more (score = 67)
Minnesota...learn more (score = 67)
Alaska...learn more (score = 66)
South Dakota...learn more (score = 65)
Indiana...learn more (score = 63)
North Dakota...learn more (score = 63)
Maine...learn more (score = 63)
District of Columbia...learn more (score = 60)
Missouri...learn more (score = 60)
California...learn more (score = 59)
Kansas...learn more (score = 59)
Iowa...learn more (score = 59)
West Virginia...learn more (score = 59)
Wyoming...learn more (score = 59)
Oklahoma...learn more (score = 58)
Nevada...learn more (score = 55)
Utah...learn more (score = 53)
Colorado...learn more (score = 47)
New Mexico...learn more (score = 47)
Arizona...learn more (score = 45)
Montana...learn more (score = 45)
Idaho...learn more (score = 44)

In bold are states that I live, have lived, have considered living in, and may live in at some point in the future.

Update: I hate Kevin. Not envious or anything. Just sayin'...

It's UH-mania here at RAWbservations, but it's been something I've been thinking about lately. To those of you uninterested, there'll be one more UH post after this and then you'll see more of the stuff you come here for, whatever in the world that is.

My recent post in regards to the Ten Percent Rule drew sime ire from the Cougfans.com message boards for crimes ranging from demonstrating insufficient school pride to a "pathetic" view on life.

While I was cruising around, though, I found a lot of great links regarding the conference realignment going on since the ACC swiped some teams from the Big East, leading the Big East to eye some of (UH's) Conference USA schools, leading the C*USA to eye some of the Western Athletic Conference schools.

Kevin posted on it last week and a bit ago, which initially got me thinking about it. The Cougfans board increased my interest with links like this one:

The round of conference reshuffling begun by the move of Miami and Virginia Tech from the Big East to the ACC has pitted Conference USA and the Western Athletic Conference against one another in a power struggle for survival, and C-USA has a plan to gain an upper hand.

A source close to the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said inviting Southern Methodist, Rice and Tulsa, along with second-year MAC member Central Florida, seems to be the most viable option to keep C-USA afloat as a 12-team league and stay in the business of big-time college athletics.

I don't really have a dog in this hunt. My primary desire from this is to get the Texas teams together and my secondary desire is to be reasonably competitive. I realize that I'm the exception on this (CougFans are adament about the best possible conference and that's where Kevin seems to stand as well).

If Rice, UH, TCU, and SMU are together in the WAC, that's cool. If they're together in Conference USA, that's cool too. The Cougfans (who know a heck of a lot more about this than me) bemoan the additions of Rice and SMU to the conference because they're not competitive enough. They're much more hot on staying with the C*USA and pulling in Central Florida and another more competitive school.

I understand where they're coming from on that. My feeling on it is that I actually know people who go to Rice and SMU so the games will have more importance to me than a game against East Carolina or Central Florida, even though the latter will look better as far as rankings go. I'd also prefer to play teams in Louisiana and Oklahoma because I'd at least theoretically have a chance to make a road trip from Houston on an important game. Plus I'd rather have a 9-3 record in a less competitive conference than a 3-8 record in a more competitive one. Of course, I say all this and if somehow the SEC (better conference, few local universities)were to extend and invitation, I'd be hard-pressed to turn it down.

Not waiting on that invitation, though.

Of course, rankings do matter, which is why I don't list North Texas (which may not be so bad since they seem to be upwardly mobile, but I'm not excited at the prospect). Rankings (and publicity) matter for recruiting purposes and, almost as importantly, televised games. In that vein Doug's reconferencing scheme leaves me pretty cold. Sure, I like that we're in the same conference as Tulane right now, but ULLafayette or ULMonroe are not particularly attractive schools for conference-mates in his scenario that lumps most non-BCS schools together indiscriminately.

Anyhow, those are my thoughts on the subject.

My tenure at the University of Houston was a marriage between chance and opportunity. It wasn't even on my list of places to go until the time to choose drew near, but once it made it on to the list it shot to the forefront pretty quickly.

When I was a kid, I figured I'd go to UT like my father did. When it came time for my brother to choose a college our house was inundated with material as they explored every possible option, in the end going to UT just like we'd all pretty much predicted. Since David went to UT to become an engineer like Dad, I didn't have to.

One of the materials to help him choose a college was a program for our Apple ][e computer. Not really knowing where I wanted to go or what I wanted to do, I ran through option after option trying to figure out what college best suited every concievable thing that I might've wanted to do when I grew up. Two options near the top of the list were Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University.

I figured "Hey, neat, colleges in Texas that aren't UT & AM. I wanna go to one of these places!"

Mom and Dad rather forcefully explained that private colleges were out of the question. "Harrumph," I thought, "they just don't care about my education."

Seeing that I was upset, Mom reneged a bit. Or at least seemed to. "If you can give me one thing that those universities offer that a public one doesn't, then you can go there."

Of course they couldn't, which was the point. I was still sure that Mom and Dad just didn't love me enough to sink ten grand a year in tuition so that I could go where I wanted to go, but I quickly moved on from the computer program to a big giant book.

Since cost was so darn important to them, I swept through and wrote down all the cheapest colleges I could find. When I finally determined that I was going to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, I skipped up to Mom and gave her the news. I'm sure she explained about out-of-state tuition and so on, but one thing I remember her saying was "If you just want to find a cheap college, take a look at the University of Guam. You could probably even get a scholarship there."

So then it was settled. I was going to the University of Guam and if I worked hard enough, I might get a scholarship. It was the "working hard" bit that got me, along with thinking that there were more important things in my thirteen year old world than figuring out where I was going to college.

I went to a high school with a population that hovered around 4,000 students. By the time I was looking for college, the notion of a university with 40,000 students was wholly unappealing.

So I started looking at Texas's third-tier colleges. I still didn't know what I wanted to do, but I was leaning towards teaching and Stephen F. Austin and Southwest Texas both had good teaching programs, so I started looking in to those. As I started settling in with the family's brand-spanking-new ACER 486/50 computer, I started developing an unfortunate affection for technology that lead me to start thinking that maybe I'd prefer do that as well.

Dad took me to see the SFA campus, which I thought was nice. I also went to see a college up near Waco called Texas State Technical Institute which had good two-year degree programs. I liked the campus just fine and the computer nerds and hippies there seemed right up my alley, but once I determined that my high school was actually bigger than that college, I started to rethink my "small school" idea and started looking at bigger universities.

It was just as well. Once I became more interested in pursuing a technology-related matter, I discovered that big universities were better in that regard anyway. There was some question as to whether or not I'd be able to get in to UT or A&M, so I looked at other big universities, too.

An entire family of family friends had gone to Texas Tech, which had made its way towards the top of the list. I also had a good friend who was trying to convince me to go to Louisiana State University. It was out-of-state, but the tuitions were dirt-low to the point that it didn't really even cost that much more to go there.

I'd remembered what Mom said about having to justify paying more so I looked heavily into LSU's computer programs and found them lacking (they had a CS major and MIS specialty). Luckily, sort-of, Texas Tech's was lacking even more (all they had that I could find was MIS).

About the same time, I was becoming friends with a guy I'd met off ACME BBS named Adam. Adam was a more academically accomplished fellow than I was and he'd chosen to go to the University of Houston.

I'd never really considered UH for a number of reasons. First of all, I knew practically nothing about it. Second of all, it had a reputation for being academically forgiving to the point that it had earned the nickname "Cougar High."

So I found it interesting that Adam had decided to take his good grades there.

Also around that time I met a girl named Anna during a summer job that I had. Anna struck me as quite intelligent at the get-go. It turned out that she was going to UH as well. They were both involved with the Honors College there.

The recruiters were hitting Clear Lake pretty hard and the UH rep was really good. Unlike Texas and A&M, he didn't require an auditorium and I was able to ask him several questions. When he explained that there was an entire college at UT dedicated to technology, I was just about sold. When I saw the wonderful campus (which I'd wrongly imagined being kind of dingy), I was only going through the motions with the other universities.

I applied at Texas A&M to see if I could get in and was put on the deferred list for a semester. I didn't bother applying at Texas Tech because they had strict numerical criteria which I just barely passed. LSU was out of the running since UH could offer everything it could and then some.

Of course, I'd be lying if I didn't mention that there were other factors. First of all, that co-worker named Anna became my serious girlfriend. Secondly, I was really getting used to Houston and wasn't particularly thrilled at the prospect of leaving. UH was a good opportunity to get out of the house without going off to college. It was the best of both worlds.

There are times I wish I had more traditional university memories, which UH did not really provide. Yet because of its non-traditional demographics, it really offered the students many of the benefits of a smaller university. It wasn't hard to get involved with student government (which I didn't) or the school paper for instance (which I wrote for over three years). It also had the benefits of a larger university, with a Division I-A football team that twice came away with 7-4 records (the other seasons? We won't go there).

If I had it all to do over again, I'd still be a Cougar.

Greg is gloating over UT's request to put caps on Bush's ten percent plan. If you're giddy at the prospect of painting Bush's governorship a failure, I can see why this might excite you.

While my views on affirmative action are conflicting and uncertain, I have no such qualms whatsoever with the 10% plan and UT's request changes my mind little.

I say "go ahead and lock UT and A&M up with ten percenters." Just because the big boys don't like it doesn't mean that they're right. In regards to their own interest, they might well be, but their interests don't trump everyone else's, from my point of view.

Critics of the plan from both the left and the right quip that it's merely affirmative action by another name. UT wishes to be released of this so that they can go back to some sort of AA function, which provides liberals with a temporary victory and conservatives an issue.

But there is a key difference between the two. One takes into account the student's background and the other pays more attention to its race. Ideally, under affirmative action colleges would be able to look at each of applicants and get an individual sense of what they have to offer, but that's not the case because there are so many applications that the big boys have to go through. The result was that two kids with near the exact same education bonafides that went to the same school will have two different standards of admission.

The Ten Percent rule circumvents this to a degree and picks up diversity by way of geographic diversity. Poor inner city high schools will get the same "quota" as those in the suburbs will. Because of the de facto segregation of schools, this creates racial diversity as well as geographic.

This is also used as an attack on the system: it depends on segregation to be effective. Well yeah, but if the schools weren't as segregated as they are, neither affirmative action nor the ten percent rule would be necessary. The Ten Percent Rule accepts two realities that affirmative action and complete lack thereof do not: College admissions at big universities are necessarily shallow in their admissions methods and the general backgrounds of different races create trends that keep people segregated.

The Ten Percent Rule prevents colleges from just looking for black and Hispanic slots to fill (might be a reason why they want it to go away) while boosting (albeit not as much as affirmative action) minority numbers and providing a way out for those who come from crummy schools.

It's obviously imperfect. Some kids transfer to poor schools for their last semester or two in order to get into UT or A&M. It also puts some people that aren't prepared for the more rigorous public universities in above their heads. I'm not against revisiting the policy to correct these problems (perhaps making them have been a student at the high school for two years or having some sort of remedial program to prepare them for the big colleges), but I'm not thrilled to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

There are also benefits beyond diversity that are often painted as drawbacks. Because of the Ten Percent Rule and increasing population in the state, non-"Tier I" universities are becoming exponentially more competitive. Just a few months ago I heard a phrase I never thought I'd here from someone that went to a good high school and graduated in the top third of her class:

"I wanted to go to the University of Houston, but I couldn't get in."

When I was applying for colleges, the University of Houston was a gimme. I almost didn't go there for that reason. Luckily, I knew some people in the honors program that changed my perspective on the school. If my friend's experiences are any indication, I wouldn't be able to get in.

It's not just UH. By the time I graduated, Texas Tech (which was supposed to be a gimme as well) was only barely within my grasp. Today the third most applied to university is Southwest Texas State University. As applications come through, they too will become more competitive.

The more competitive these universities become, the less "ghetto" that the University of Houston becomes, the more their degrees will mean. The more people that graduate from there, the more alumni donations they'll get.

Affirmative Action and the Ten Percent Rule are mostly pushing the numbers around, but the primary concern I have is whom it's pushing where. The beneficiaries of Affirmative Action or suburban and upper middle-class minorities and the losers are poor whites. The beneficiaries of the Ten Percent Rule are the best and the brightest from poor schools, regardless of color. The losers are kids that go to well-off high schools.

I much prefer the latter set of winners and losers to the former, even though I'm the exact type of person that's losing from the deal.

But people like me that can't get in to UT (I might have been able to when I graduated, there's no way I could now) will end up going somewhere else. That will raise the requirements and make the schools considerably more competitive (or competitive at all).

It's the type of people that wanted to go to UT that would most likely exhibit the kind of school spirit to boost athletic programs, which raise the school's profile. Additionally, they're the type that donates to the school when they graduate and bring in more money.

At the end of the day, UT & A&M will always be the premier (public) schools in Texas. Ten Percent Rule, no Ten Percent Rule, affirmative action or no, that will remain the case. To that extent, Greg and Charles are both right insofar as the state needs to start planning to have more than two premier schools. Florida has at least three, California has a handful, and it's time that Texas step up to the plate.

Though it pains to me admit it, I don't believe the University of Houston is a logical beneficiary due to geography among other reasons. Taking Texas Tech the last ten yards would be a good start and other collegetown teams (SWTSU in San Marcos, UNT in Denton, and possibly UTEP for some more geographical balance). Regardless, for a state our size, we need at least one more heavy hitter.

Something tells me that Stacey Pressman is going to get a lot of marriage proposals this week.

Frankly, I'm done with the back-and-crack-waxing-salon-spa guy. Does America really need to see all of this "manscaping?" What's wrong with a good old-fashioned manly man? One who doesn't know the difference between mauve and taupe, and who won't refer to his wardrobe as "couture." Heck, I'll take him color-blind.

To me, there is something endearing about a man with wrinkled khakis, the kind that signifies, "I'm not too perfect." You boys can have your Armani and Gucci man boutiques. You can strive for overpriced perfection. I'll find the Armani guy. Only he'll be on a TJ Maxx rack with a tag dangling off him that reads "slightly irregular." Any savvy shopper knows there's nothing wrong with a faint quirk. It's called a good deal.

A fashionably clueless man needs me to tell him that his paisley tie with the ketchup stain might look better on him than the Garcia tie with the barbeque sauce. It creates levity in a relationship. And those dreaded nose hairs, don't worry, I'll get them. Fab 5, leave him alone, I'll work on him. He's my project. Don't you know that's part of the fun for some of us women?

When I was on the football team in junior high, we had to dress up the day of our home games. Dress shirt, tie, the works. I really didn't know how to do a tie and so naturally, it was lopsided and goofy looking.

There was a girl in my social studies class. I don't remember much about her other than that she was generally quiet and ran with the troublemakers. Some kid was making fun of my inept tie configuration when she walked up to me, unfurled the tie and retied it correctly.

I fell in love with her on the spot.

I got to the Firehouse at about 9 just in case there were problems with parking. As it turned out, there weren't a whole lot of people there, but it was a good thing that I arrived early because it wasn't 10 before No Justice, the opening act, took the stage.

The evening started off on the right foot. The bartender spotted me a beer, which is rare but happens from time to time. Even better, I didn't have to wait in line for it. I was on the phone leaving a message for Kevin and Callie when he just walked out and handed it to me. Man, I love that bar.

It was a predominantly young crowd. TGD tends to attract younger audience so it wasn't a surprise, though it was quite welcome. It was also predominantly female (3-2 ratio, possibly 2-1) and most of them were concentrated in one area. I came to call them The Pack. It was not only predominantly female, but there were actually a number of girls that I would consider "my type." Generally, at the Firehouse, it's wall-to-wall girls who ain't my type, but I woulda been sittin' in tall cotton if I were in the relationship market.

I've heard a lot about No Justice over the last several months. They're supposed to be The Next Big Thing out of Oklahoma according to Great Divide bandmembers and fans. I bought their CD a month or two back in anticipation for the show and found it to be good, though not great (I gave it a solid B). I got the impression that they were probably a better live band and boy was I right!

I was playing pool when they first got on the stage. I thought that it was the bar music, though I thought it was odd that Jack (the audio guy) would have a copy of a live No Justice song when it was their first stint at the Firehouse and (I'm pretty sure) in Houston. Okay, okay, so I'm a little dim. But it goes to show the tightness of the band. Until I heard the sounds of an audience, I thought it was the studio recording.

They played most of my favorite songs from the CD including The Toast, which I didn't think they would (it's a slower song). The lead singer's voice is quite booming and in contrast to the slightly restrained sound on the studio recording It's not unusual in the Texas music industry for that to be the case, but usually the restrained voice on a CD hurts the CD whereas with NJ it didn't hurt the CD as much as the difference made No Justice one of the best new live acts I've seen in a while. There were three Steve Earle cover songs, which is a bit much, but that's my only complaint with their setlist. There also played Rolling Stones's Dead Flowers and a couple covers I was unfamiliar with (I love it when acts introduce me to good music).

The night took a bit of a foul turn when a certain romantic figure from my past showed up, but she left about the time that TGD took the stage. I figured it'd take me a few songs before I started loosening up. But the New Great Divide hit the ground running with some great TGD classics.

On the second song, I'd kinda wished that Lisa had stuck around as a young lady in The Pack walked over and asked me to dance. Tragically (for her, not me), I am a pretty pathetic dancer. She had no idea what she was getting herself in to, but she was a sport nonetheless. I only wish Lisa had been there out of petty spite. Yeah, yeah, that's me. Petty and spiteful. Regardless of my dancing ineptitude, it was flattering to be asked.

Micah Ailes is the new lead singer, replacing the Mike McClure who in many ways carried the band. I wasn't sure what to expect as I didn't know much of Ailes and hadn't heard their new sound. As it turns out, Ailes has a spectacular McClure-type voice when he wants it. There were literally points during some of the McClure songs where I could have closed my eyes and I'd have thought that it was McClure singing them. Much to my surprise, though, when he got to the first non-TGD song (a Chris Knight cover) his voice sounded quite different. Analogous to Scott Melott's voice, but with a little more heft.

A little bit later, I struck up a conversation with Not Blake (or perhaps he struck up a conversation with me) about the lead singer. We were both impressed and agreed mightily that if he could write good songs, TGD would be better than ever. Not Blake had apparently come down from Ohio (where Ailes is from) to see the band play. I asked him about Ailes's other band, but he said he'd never heard them play. Apparently, he is a former Texas who got into TGD down here before relocating to the hell we call Cleveland.

After about the fifth song or so, the band announced it was someone's birthday and lo' and behold, probably the cutest girl from The Pack, The Birthday Girl, was wished a personal happy birthday by the band and the drummer kissed her hand (oooh, ahhh, the drummer! Actually, with McClure gone, the drummer seems to be the functional leader of the band). So it was apparently a birthday party that had attracted all the ladies and a few guys. One of them, I assumed her boyfriend, went apespit and pulled her away from the stage to "talk to her" or something. He was quite apparently jealous or something.

The next part of the show was eye-opening for a couple of reasons. First of all, Scotte Lester, the lead guitarist and occasional lead vocalist, sang a couple songs that had long been nixed from the TGD play list. McClure really dominated the shows during his era and Scotte would only get to play one song. That, thankfully, was one of the things that they changed.

The second thing they did was set up five benches and sit in a row to do a few accoustic tracks. Rather than the slow accoustic tracks that I am accustomed to whenever a stool is pulled out, they sang rockin' classics like "Can't You See." Even better, everyone got to sing. As I mentioned, McClure often dominated the band to the point that it was practically Mike McClure and the Great Divide (and was thus little surprise when he went out on his own). Given that McClure is as talented as he is, I never really knew what I was missing with the feel of a truly unified band as they were that night. It wasn't Micah Ailes and The Great Divide, it was just The Great Divide. I look forward to seeing McClure's solo shows, but I think I like TGD better this way.

As the show progressed, Micah started singing more than a couple original tunes. They were quite good. "This is gonna work," Not Blake told me. I nodded.

Birthday Girl and Dragonheart (the boy that pulled her away from the stage earlier) were dancing up a storm. In fact, everyone was dancing (Except me. They'd seen enough to not ask me to dance) and having a great time. I'd only had a couple beers by that point, but the sheer energy eminating from the room was enough to intesify the carefree feeling I so often get at these shows (and that keep me going to them). Everyone was there to have a great time and you can't ask for much more than that.

The band took a timeout between songs in order to remind everyone that they had CDs for sale and that anyone interested needed to go talk to Blake at the stand. "Wave Blake!" Micah said. "Now everyone wave to Blake!"

I turned around to wave at Blake, who I'd talked to earlier when I was mulling over buying a TGD shirt. Not Blake was standing right next to him. He'd had a lot more to drink than I, so he felt compelled to walk over and inform me, "Hey man, I'm Not Blake. That guy over there is Blake." I told him that I knew it, but he stared at me kinda blankly. The band started playing again and we were bopping up and down and singing along.

In addition to the theatre on stage, there was some off as well. A few songs later, a frat-looking boy made the mistake of trying to cut in on Birthday Girl and Dragonheart. Birthday Girl'd had quite a bit to drink and was kinda oblivious to it. When Dragonheart pulled Frat Boy away, they were dancing once more. With the theatre off the stage done, I could enjoy the band again, which I dutifully did.

TGD was hitting all the high notes. Micah was doing a great job of reproducing McClure's material in close to its original sound, but putting a lot of heart in it to take it the extra few yards. Ailes truly wanted to be there and that's as energizing for the audience as it is for the performers.

As the show started drawing to a close, they started singing some of their classics. The most prominant (okay, I'm biased because it's my favorite) was "Yesterday Road", during which Birthday Girl actually invited me up to dance before being rescued by her friends.

"You was robbed!" Not Blake exclaimed.

"I was robbed!" I agreed.

Not that I really cared. There seemed to be a lot of drama going on in The Pack. Besides, I was free to finish my cigarette (unlike before, when I had to put the poor thing out), listen to the music, watch the band, and watch everything else going on. So I really didn't care. But I was robbed.

Not long after Birthday Girl and Frat Boy were dancing with each other. After the song ended they went over to a front table and preceeded to make out. The Pack came to her rescue, but Frat Boy went with them and they were making out again in no time.

No Justice went up there to sing "Used to Be" (another classic) with them in one of the closing songs of the night. I spent half the song bopping to the music and the other half avoiding Birthday Girl and Frat Boy, who'd gone back to dancing again, as well as Not Blake, who could barely stand up straight. Birthday Girl was rescued once more by her friends before the song reached an end.

There wasn't an encore and I wanted to get out before I was tempted to buy something I couldn't afford, so I sped to the bar to pay my tab. Five beers?! I drank five beers?!?! I was trying to cut back, but somehow I'd drank five beers! Come to think of it, that's probably why I was accidentally but a Bic lighter in my mouth and started flicking at my cigarette.

I said goodbye to Not Blake and headed for the door. On my way out I could see Birthday Girl in the corner of my eye. She was slumped over and barely standing straight. She'd obviously come down and was in for a rough night and a rougher morning.

Five beers?! I hadn't eaten much of anything. I was in for a rough night and morning, too.

There are boys who woke up with headaches
There are girls who are ashamed
There'll be parents full of questions
But there's always friends to blame.
-The Great Divide, "Yesterday Road"

Michael Williams has an interesting hypothetical question about friends and lovers:

Suppose Boy A and Boy B are friends, and both like Girl A. Girl A likes Boy A, but doesn't like Boy B. Boy A wants to go out with Girl A.

1. Does Boy A need Boy B's permission to go out with Girl A? Do the facts that Boys A and B are friends, and that Boy B likes Girl A imply that if Boy A is a "real friend" he won't go out with Girl A without first asking Boy B?

2. Suppose Boy A does ask for Boy B's permission, but Boy B refuses. Can Boy A then go out with Girl A, or would doing so prove that he isn't a "real friend" to Boy B?

The consensus seems to be that Boy A should tell Boy B what he's going to do, but that's it.

I seem to be the lone dissenter.

It is my position that, absent extenuating circumstances, Boy A (I'll call him Alvin) should in fact seek Boy B's (Bobby's) blessing before going after Girl A (Ann).

There are a few caveats. First, If Bobby hasn't told Alvin that he likes her until after Alvin declares his interest, then it's Bobby's problem (exception to the exception: If Alvin is only marginally interested but Bobby worships the girl). If Alvin feels so smitten that he's going to marry Ann, then he's free to do whatever, though he'd need to understand that there's a chance it would cost him the friendship.

Why? Because friendship is more important than a girlfriend (or boyfriend). If you know that you're going to seriously hurt your friend by pursuing a particular girl, it does say something about the seriousness to which you hold the friendship. You can talk all day about how Bobby shouldn't feel that way, but if Bobby is heartbroken, you're agitating the wound.

I come at this by two tangental hypotheticals that I've pondered. The first is an ex. Let's say we're dealing with Girl B (Bonnie) who use to date Bobby but now is interested in Alvin and vice-versa. Despite Alvin and Bonnie's mutual interest, he is hurting Bobby by pursuing the relationship and when possible, friends shouldn't hurt friends (exception: if Bobby dumped Bonnie cold, then he's hard-pressed to be able to object, though if it was a long and painful affair, it could still apply).

The second tangental hypothetical is if Bobby is dating Girl C (Cynthia) and Alvin and Cynthia fall in love, it would be a betrayal of the friendship for Alvin to carry on an affair with Cynthia (even if Bobby and Cynthia aren't married and there is no sex involved between any of them). If Cynthia offers to leave Bobby for Alvin, Alvin should refuse.

Why? Because Alvin cannot realistically expect Bobby to be a good friend to someone who stole his girlfriend (regardless of the specifics, that's how Bobby is gonna see it). The logical extention of that is that if Alvin is seeing someone that causes Bobby great pain, he is harming the friendship. The notion that Bobby should just not feel hurt when he sees the girl of his dreams holding hands with his best friend is not tenable.

Now, that being said, except in the most extreme cases, I believe that it is incumbent upon Bobby to lend his blessings on Alvin's pursuit (at least to Ann and Bonnie, Cynthia is probably automatically extreme). If he fails to do so, then it is he that is causing his friend grief for selfish reasons. If it's a girl that he only casually likes and therefore isn't really of much consequence other than perhaps rivalry or a bruised ego, then he needs to be a man about it and realize that he lost.

If he abuses this 'veto' power, then I would fully expect (and endorse) Alvin revoking it. The only justified reason that Bobby should refuse is if it makes him physically ill or so hurt that he could not face either of them. In which case, the 'veto' is more of a warning than anything else (on a side note, I had a friend who was going to date someone that I hated passionately. I had to make the decision to either warn him that it would hurt our friendship or let it progress and just pull away from him if he succeeded. Luckily for me, things didn't work out).

At any point, Alvin is free to disregard Bobby's veto and probably should if his affection for Ann (or Bonnie or maybe even possibly Cynthia) is such that he's thinking the rest of his life. If he thinks it's a fling or is very uncertain, risking a friendship in favor of a romance is a fool's wager.

As for Michael's answer and rationale:

My own position is that if Girl A likes Boy A rather than Boy B, then Boy B will just have to deal with it. His feelings may be hurt, but if he were to interfere in Boy A's relationship with Girl A, then Boy B would be the one who wasn't being a "real friend".

Furthermore, if Boy A is required to ask Boy B for permission to go out with Girl A, I think that shows a profound lack of respect for Girl A, on both the boys' parts. Girl A has made her decision, and she likes Boy A. For the boys to have some sort of external negotiations over her based on their own relatinship reduces Girl A to a commodity, a mere object.

I can understand that Boy A would be concerned for his friend's feelings, but Boy B has no claim on Girl A. If Boy A restricts his involvement with Girl A based on the desires of Boy B, doesn't that dehumanize Girl A?

Yes and no. I agree that Boy B (Bobby) is not being a good friend except in extenuating circumstances and if Bobby's attachment isn't severe, he should sacrifice his quitclaim rights immediately.

However, whether or not Bobby goes out with Girl A (Ann) is not only her choice, but also his. Therefore, in my mind, his relenting for the sake of his friendship is the equivalent of saying "I would be interested, but I'm not because of outside circumstances." As outside circumstances interfere with would-be relationships all the time, I don't consider her being deprived of any rights as she has no "right" to date Boy A (Alvin).

It would only be objectification if she were somehow forced to date Bobby against her will, but that's not the case (on the contrary, if she knew the rationale behind it, she'd likely hate Bobby with a passion). She is simply denied the opportunity to be with someone that she wants. So's Bobby and so are hundreds of thousands of people every day for reasons out of their control.

Netscape.com has a He Said / She Said feature in which I guess they regularly tackle intergenderal dating issues. The one tonight is about asking your partner how many partners they've had.

Both sides agree that it's not a good idea to get too specific about it. I've never asked and have only been asked once after the relationship had ended.

Dad told me once that there was a Native American tribe that only counted none, one, two, and many. I think that's about the right way of going about it.

"How many partners have you had, Jerry?"

"In the words of my Indian ancestors, many, but before you slap me that only means more than two."

"That's not an answer..."

"Sure it is. I will do my ancestors honor by using their numbering system for the question and only their numbering system."

[SLAP]

Or maybe not.

The whole subject also reminds me of Kevin Smith's Clerks when the main character goes berzerk when he discovers how many men his girlfriend has performed felatio on. Makes me curious how a guy would respond if informed their girlfriend specified some exact number over fifty.

"Are you upset?" she asks.

"No... no, I just need you to do something for me."

"What's that?"

"Hold on," he says as he scans his bookshelf. "Here you go."

"Why are you giving me a copy of the Lord of the Rings trilogy?"

"I really, really, REALLY need you to read this three times this year for me."

Bababeesh.

CRAP!

Errr... I mean... congratulations, Dub!

At first I was sure that it wasn't her. She hated country music and at one point commented that she wasn't sure if she could like someone that thought that country music was quality material because they obviously lacked judgment. I laughed because I thought she was joking. She might have been, but she didn't even crack a smile.

She bought me a Shiner Bock beer. At first I thought she was a waitress or something and I started to say that I didn't order one. When I saw her standing there, the awkwardness was immediate. Not necessarily because I hadn't talked to her in a couple months or that I threatened a restraining order if she showed up at my apartment, but because I knew that she hated country music and "everything it stands for" and seeing her at the Firehouse, Houston's premier venue for country artists, was something of a jolt to the system.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"I came to watch The Great Divide. My ex-boyfriend said they're really good," she explained as she watched the opening act play. "He was right."

"This isn't The Great Divide. This is No Justice. They're the opening act."

"Oh, well they're really good."

"Except that you hate anything resembling country music."

"I like (Steve Earle's) Copperhead Road. Remember?"

"Right. Look, I'm trying to watch the show and I'd rather not talk through it."

To my surprise, she actually didn't and I was able to enjoy the remaining three songs in relative peace. When they got off the stage, I hoped the TGD would get on lickity-split.

"So, that I'm here... does that surprise you?" she asked.

I was so tired of that question. She seemed to ask it over and over again when we were together and during our weekly conversations after it ended. I almost said 'not really' out of instinct, but for once she did surprise me. "Yeah."

"Would it surprise you if I told you that I've been coming here for two weeks to see you?"

"Yeah, it would, because you haven't."

"Come again?"

"Last Friday night, 1100 Springs played and I can say with some certainty that you weren't there. It wasn't a crowded show. I would have noticed."

"Well, sorry to disappoint you, but I was."

"Whatever," I replied.

"So are you going to ask me?"

"Ask you what?"

"Ask me why I've been coming to the Firehouse to see you?"

"Oh, well I figured that it was because you found a whole new appreciation for Texas country and Americana music. You mean I was wrong?!"

"Oh, please. It's mysogynist, inbred, neoconfederate bullshit. I came to see you," she informed me. I started walking towards the door. "Where are you going?"

"Outside."

"Why?"

"You'll... you'll just have to excuse me. The shock that you came here to see me is just sooo much that I need a breath of fresh air."

"Alex, come back here."

"Nope, I'm going outside."

"It's raining."

"You mean you're not going to follow me? Sweet!"

"Alex, I'm serious. I'm going to get sick if I go out there."

"Then don't come out."

She did anyway. "So aren't you the least bit curious why I've been coming here?"

"Not really. I told you I wouldn't take your phone calls, reply to your IMs, and that if you stopped by my apartment I'd call the police. I guess you found another way to slip through the cracks."

"Can we go in? The rain is really bothering me."

"Go in if you want. I like the rain."

"Fine. Well look, I came here to tell you that I'm over you."

I started laughing. "You've been stalking me for two weeks just so you can let me know that you're over me?"

"Not stalking. Like you said, I couldn't call you or see you, so this was the only way I could track you down."

"You tell me that you're over me," I get out between chuckles.

"Well what did you want me to do?"

"Who cares what I want. You're over me, remember?" I answered. She didn't reply. "I figured that if you were over me, you wouldn't feel the need to track me down and tell me."

"Well I've been over you for a while. Really I have been since you dumped me."

"Aaaaaaah," I replied with a mock-yell. "This is why I stopped talking to you. All you do is talk around in circles, never actually going anywhere except blaming me for all your problems and telling me that I never meant a thing to you in regular alternation."

"Huh?"

"If you've been over me since we broke up, then why won't you get on with your life?"

"I have."

"As evidenced by the fact that you're stalking me. Unless... wait... have you met someone?" I asked. My fingers crossed in between our faces.

"I don't need anyone."

"Whatever! What do you want from me? Just tell me what you want from me that you can take with you and leave me be? If you've been over me, then why are you here? Before you said that you were here to tell me that you're over me."

"Right. I came to tell you. Not because I am."

"Because you're not."

"God, you're arrogant. Is it so impossible to believe that I've gotten on with my life?"

"While you're standing here, getting sick in the rain, in a venue that plays music that loathe, and have been allegedly coming to for the past two weeks?"

"You're twisting my words."

"Not your words, sweetheart, your actions! Look, if you wanted to tell me that you're over me, great. You gonna go now?"

"Well that's not why I'm here."

"Aaaaaahhhhhh! Well, while you have arguments in your head about why you're here, I'm going to go over there to keep an eye on the band so I can go back inside when they started."

"I'm here to ask you if you've gotten over me."

"I, uhh... heh... what?"

"Does that surprise you?"

"Only because it makes no sense! When have I ever given the impression that I haven't moved on?"

"Well, you're still single, aren't you?"

"No comment."

"It's been what, six months? You still haven't found anyone? Sounds awfully curious to me."

"This is in contrast to that girl I met in Austin, when you suspected that I was only interested in her because I wasn't over here... and the girl in Dallas. So whether I date or not, it's because of you... and I'm the arrogant one here?"

"You can't deny that it was a bit soon after our breakup that you wanted to date again."

"I... ehhhh... I... mmmmmh... errrr... I.... it was soon."

"See?"

"Only because you never meant much of anything to me," I told her. There wasn't much else I could really say.

"I think I should go now."

"Yeah."

The Dixie Chicks have announced that country musicians are meanie-poos and they're going to find some new friends they are leaving country music behind and are going to pursue a rock & roll sound.

Makes sense, after all, nothing screams "rock and roll band" like the name Dixie Chicks.

But I digress. I can't say that this surprises me all that much except in timing. I've always felt that one way or another, Natalie Maines was going to go pop. Despite the upbringing of her Texas county music legend father Lloyd Maines, country music has never been her thing.

I also figured that the band itself would start moving to a more money-making less genred sound, but I figured they'd do it in the vein of Shania Twain of Faith Hill, who've both managed to become pop successes while maintaining the loyalty of most country music fans. They've done so largely by a tactic of deny, deny, deny, accept, then explain that good music comes in all shapes and sizes.

So on one hand, kudos to the Chicks for being honest about their intentions. It's also a bit gutsy when you consider that a banjo and fiddle are not typical in rock (Blue October notwithstanding).

Of course, their rationale is about as lamebrained as their sense of appropriateness:

Violinist Martie Maguire told Spiegel magazine: "We don't feel part of the country scene any longer, it can't be our home any more."

She said she was disappointed other country singers didn't back up the Dixie Chicks in their criticism of George W Bush's politics on Iraq.

"A few weeks ago, Merle Haggard said a couple of nice words about us, but that was it," Maguire complained.

"The support we got came from others, like Bruce Springsteen."

Going home empty-handed from the Country Awards ceremony also made them decide to break with the scene, Maguire said.

"Instead, we won three Grammys against much stronger competition.

"So we now consider ourselves part of the big Rock 'n' Roll family."

That's the equivalent of saying "Y'all [sorry, 'you all' in non-country speak] are mean! We're gonna go find new friends!"

On the other hand, they really were dragged through the mud by other country singers and the complaint could be considered valid to some degree. Toby Keith has had an ongoing "feud" with them predating the remarks, Mark Chestnutt and Brooks and Dunn both made disparaging remarks at the Houston Rodeo.

That said, they were not exactly supportive of Toby Keith's own political statement ("It's ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture - and not just the bad people who did bad things. You've got to have some tact." she said weeks before she said she was ashamed of the President on foreign soil) and it's a bit unrealist to expect fellow musicians to take a bullet flung by their common fan base. If you're gonna dish it out, you gotta be able to take it.

Or you can do as they are and take your ball and go home.

The unfortunate thing is that unlike Kevin and Scott, I do like the Dixie Chicks music. They are (were) one of my more favored Nashville acts. Natalie's got a great singing voice and while they're song-leaches (ie don't write their own material), they tend to have pretty good taste in songs. They also bought a more unique sound to a bland town that very much needed it.

But they seem to have an air of superiority that doesn't fly in country music (unless you have Shania Twain's figure) and a sense of cultural elitism aimed at the very fans that propelled them to stardom. Tragic, but inevitable.

For those of you wondering where I stand on the mayoral race, it can pretty much be summed up as "Anybody But Turner."

I would rather Bill White, Orlando Sanchez, Michael Berry, and even Raymond Hans Rodriguez win than Turner so much so that I really don't care which one of them wins, as long as his name ain't Turner.

Michael Berry has just dropped out of the race, which is ostensibly good for fellow Republican Orlando Sanchez. However, I maintain that Sanchez isn't the real beneficiary - Sylvester Turner is.

I believe that a year from now we will have a Mayor Turner or a Mayor White, not a Mayor Sanchez. Sanchez's campaign thus far has been lackluster to the point that many supporters are disinchanted with him. To win a race in Houston, if it's even possible, a Republican has no margin of error. Sanchez has demonstrated pretty clearly to me that he is not a flawless candidate (neither are White or Turner, of course, but they're Democrats. They don't have to be).

So considering it to be a two-way race, you start running through scenarios in which candidates will make the runoff. That would be Turner, White, or Sanchez. If White makes the runoff, I'm certain that the election is his whether his opponent is Turner or Sanchez. The key, of course, is getting there in the first place. If he fails to, it will be Turner against Sanchez, and I would take 10-1 odds on Turner carrying the day.

This lead to an interesting alignment of political interests. There is essentially the White camp and the Turner camp. Orlando Sanchez is the only way that Turner can win the election, so Sanchez is firmly in the Turner camp. In the same vein, Republican Michael Berry has always been in the White camp because he is taking votes away from Sanchez, preventing Sanchez from getting into the runoff and allowing White to make it to the runoff he'll undoubtedly win. Rodriguez, to the extent that he has any influence at all, would hurt Orlando Sanchez and therefore Sylvester Turner and therefore would be in the White camp.

So now that Michael Berry has dropped out, what does that mean? Since Berry was in the White camp, Bill White is the one most hurt by this. Berry's votes will swing towards Sanchez and propel him at least temporarily past White (In the much-lauded White-leading poll, Sanchez + Berry votes far surpass White's lead).

Of course, this could concievably be bad for Turner because it could bump him out of the runoff. In the end, though, any runoff including White will be lost by whomever the other guy is. I'm also inclined to believe that he is a lock to make the runoff in the first place.

So, a quick review:
Winners:
Michael Berry - He's saved his own political hyde. A lot of people had a lot of homes for him before he launched his quixotic mayoral bid at a point too soon in his political career. Now everyone at least knows who he is, he's got at least four more years he can serve on council, and some suggest that he might be the beneficiary of a new congressional district.
Sylvester Turner - It was starting to look pretty bad for Turner because it looked like he was going to have to face off against White and lose. However, this puts Orlando Sanchez back into the runoff hunt and returns Turner as the man most likely to be our next mayor.
Orlando Sanchez - It would be the end of Sanchez's political career if he failed to make the runoff. I'm not sure what he would do if he makes it and loses, but I'd imagine that he'll be in a much better place. There's also the relatively small chance that he could win, but I doubt it.

Losers:
Bill White - White's primary competition right now is Orlando Sanchez. He needs to pass Sanchez in order to face Turner in the general election and this has made it that much more difficult. White comes from a long line of moderate white Democratic politicians that have been losing since the Lanier mayorality.
George W. Bush - There are rumors that Bush encouraged Berry to get out. Not sure if they're true, but Bush intervened on Sanchez's behalf in 2001 and there's no reason to think that he won't again in 2003. Although it's minor, I think Bush will face embarassment when Sanchez loses the runoff.

[via Matt Moore]

The Unsexy List:

5. Lord of the Rings. The movies are fine, but did you know that if you read the trilogy three times in a year you actually get your virginity back?

[...]

9. Livejournal. How I'm feeling: bored. Song stuck in my head: "Raspberry Beret." Air of mystery that once surrounded me: gone.

10. Star diets. Has anyone seen the other half of Beyonce Knowles, Kate Winslet, or Christina Ricci? 'Cause it left with all the good parts.

11. Drinks with "sexy" names. Bar patrons who order a "screaming orgasm," "sex on the beach," "blow job," or "long slow screw against the wall" are 77% less likely to get laid than the ones drinking beer. Wonder why.

[..]

36. Employment. People always talk about "becoming their job," which is the most heinous thing ever.

The best thing about this list is that I know I'm sexy because I didn't even know what half of these things are!

When I was a younger lad, I knew this girl named Heather Pritchard. She was nothing to write home about it. She was pretty chunky, mean as an ox, and curiously and unbelievably somewhat popular.

I never really understood it. She wasn't even mean in a charismatic way. She was mean in a just plain mean way. She thought she was better than everyone except her friends, but somehow she ran with the "in" crowd and always had a lot of people around her (rarely boys, though).

When I was in high school, there was a girl named Becki Eisenreich. Becki's date to the prom (who was nothing to brag about and beneath the generally affable Becki) was unceremoniously arrested. Though he got out in time to go to prom, she had to scramble for a date at the last minute. I don't know if she succeeded or not.

Then of course, there was my high school friend Oz. Oz was a self-centered, racist, uncharismatic oaf. When it came time for prom, he never did get a date. He ended up watching rentals with his parents that night.

I mention Oz, Becki, and Heather because they all tight in to a particular way I've been feeling lately.

I've been unemployed for nearly five months now. All this time, there's been an employer that I was pretty sure would hire me. "What?" you ask, "You mean you weren't serious about finding work?"

To the contrary. The reason that I am pretty sure that they'd hire me is that they always have a deficit of employees. They always have a deficit of employees because they scare them off like an old lady in a witch hat does preschoolers.

To say that they're anal is an understatement. Though I've not gone in to it, I've worked for odd people before. This is a category unto itself, though. Gattaca monitors just about everything you do. Every four months you have to do an in-depth self-appraisal and if your appraisal is insufficient, you will be canned.

It's as steril as the IMF headquarters in the Mission Impossible movie.

They're somewhat well known in the IT industry. In fact, my roommate, my former roommate, my former roommate's roommate (and I think his other roommate too) have all at least applied for work there (my roommate presently does, my former roommate used to). It single-handedly convinced my roommate to go back to college and my former roommate was aching for something - anything! - else after just a few weeks.

Here's the thing, though: They pay. They pay well. I need something that pays well, if only for a little while.

So I decided to apply for a job with Gattaca. My roommate turned in a referral (to give you an idea of how desperate they are for warm bodies, they give him $1500 if I work there for over four months) and then... nothing. I call them back and ask the status, they say they'll call me and then... nothing.

I don't feel rejected or anything. It took them a whopping 5 interviews and six weeks to hire my roommate. But when I talked to my roommate JD about it, he said that I'd have to pester them.

So I would have to beg for a job I have absolutely no excitement for with a company that will make me miserable.

That's what got me thinking about Becki, Heather, and Oz. The only analogy I could come up with was putting myself in Becki's shoes, where you have high standards (which she did) but because of a certain situation, she had to lower them drastically to find someone. Then I think of Oz, who never lowered his expectation and watched videos on prom night.

Then I think of Heather.

I think of myself in Becki's shoes, scrambling for a date - any date! - and having to lower my expectations and taking back the guy who had a stint in jail or spending the night at home watching videos.

It feels like I've been dumped right before prom, and that I've got to find a date - any date! - to avoid digging into my savings when unemployment runs out. The only people I can get a job with is Gattaca, the only date I can get is the guy that went to jail. It feels like I'm reduced to asking Heather Bitchard, that annoying wench of a girl (and anyone that knows me knows I don't use those words loosely), to go to prom with me to avoid the fate of Oz.

But I did anyway. I applied.

But now I have to beg, which makes me feel like the hypothetical position where I ask a girl I loathe to prom... and she doesn't say yes and doesn't even say no.

"I'll go with you," she says. "But you have to beg."

I was rear-ended this evening. When I was hit, I motioned to pull off to the side when the light turned green and he acknowledged me. Except, of course, when I turned, he slammed on the gas and left me in the dust.

Minimal damage to the car. My neck is feeling pretty stiff, though.

Between the break-in and this, I think this town is trying to hasten my exit.

I've been listening to a lot of Frank Black over the last week or so. I found him on EMusic and next to Chuck Prophet, he's been the best find. He apparently tours with No-Lyfe Productions favorite They Might Be Giants and used to be the lead singer to a band called the Pixies (which I've also downloaded and not gotten a chance to listen to).

In an interesting coincidence, earlier today I linked to an article that spoke of a different Frank Black that is/was heading a group of vigilantes in Houston.

Okay, well Frank Black isn't that uncommon a name so it's not too big a coincidence, but it is kinda funny that I've just found the guy and Sugarmama links to a post about Black entering a Frank Black fan forum and the questions that erupted about his authenticity.

Humorous stuff, whether you care about Black or not.

First it was Terrifica in New York, standing up for vulnerable and jilted women everywhere!

Meanwhile, in my hometown of Houston, across the Freeway from where I used to live, the East End Vigilantes banded together to do the job that the police weren't.

Then it was The Man in the Brown Mask, working out of England.

And now... Angle Grinder Man, removing tire boots from the cars of "all good, decent law-unabiding people"

[Link via Pete's blog]

Not really, but when you frame it the way this USA Today article does, his administration comes off quite well. It's hard not to when you tell Microsoft to go to hell.

The SimDesk controversy has been hovering around the Bayou City for some time now. Honestly, I didn't know what it was about and didn't have any opinion on it. Basically, this company called SimDesk was given a lucrative contract from Houston to supply the office software for city and library computers. A lot of people raised a stink about how much it was going to cost to replace Microsoft Office, but apparently the city was being pressured into upgrading anyway and SimDesk was a hell of a lot cheaper than that would have been.

City dealing aside, this is yet another big example of Microsoft's arrogance in dealing with companies. They essentially participated in blackmail. They didn't say as much, but when you recieve a letter stating that you may or may not be audited for licenses and that it could cost you millions upon millions of dollars along with a brochure for their new licensing program, one can assume their participation in the new ($12 million) contract might have an impact as to whether or not they're going to get audited.

A few things to mention. First of all, Microsoft Office is a stellar program. Anyone who says otherwise is jaded by their hatred for the software company. It takes up a lot of resources, but there is so much you can do with it and every version has been better than the previous (Don't know about XP, though). That said, most people don't need it. Most people need to use the basic functions and could probably get by on Microsoft Works quite well. Except there's a catch. Microsoft Works (last I checked) can't save documents in Office formats (.doc, .xls, etc). The reason for this, of course, is so that people who only need Works will buy Office for compatibility's sake. There is no other plausible explanation when third party companies can save effortlessly in a Microsoft format and a Microsoft product can't.

For better or worse, Microsoft Office file formats are the standard. For better because at least there is a standard, but worse because they charge obscene amounts of money for the program (twice as much for Office as for the Windows Operating System). Between the 97-2K transfer they finally make their files forwards and backwards compatible except MS Access (which they do in 2K-XP), but then turn around and extort business and organizations to upgrade by threatening to audit.

Now, there is nothing wrong with auditing a company if they believe they are being short-changed. However, that should be done by an auditing department and the sales department should not be involved in that at all. The last thing that needs to happen is to have a sales rep warning them of an audit while making a sales pitch. That's beyond inappropriate. Not just inappropriate, it appears to be quite intentional. Microsoft could, if it so chose, audit 500 companies at random and probably 350 would come up wrong somewhere. Tracking software licensure is not an easy task. The bigger the organization, the harder it becomes. Who wants to take bets that Microsoft targets those that, like the City of Houston, don't sign on to its new program.

What's tragic, though, is that their new licensing service could be a beneficial service. It could help companies (who, for the most part, have no interest in ripping MS off) keep track of their licensing better and therefore be able to pay for outstanding licenses. But even when providing a new service, they simply cannot do so without their trademark arrogance. The intent is apparently not so much to help companies pay Microsoft what they are due, but apparently to pressure companies that upgrade every five years or so to do it every three, whether they need it or not, and whether their computers can handle it or not. Even when they have a situation (or licensing package) where everyone wins, they still can't stop being a bully.

How sad. And typical.

While I was on hold waiting for the TWC, I saw Che running around outside. "Uh oh," I thought.

I stepped outside to try to figure out what to do. Could he wait a few more minutes until I got my call in or did I need to forsake the 15 minutes I'd been waiting and track him down?

Well, a few seconds later, Buck called out to him. His name is now apparently Bo. Cool.

In any case, he's already grown more! I wasn't even sure it was him at first!

Okay, okay, I've had my puppy fix. Back to the real world...

I originally discovered the game through my friend Oz. It was, at the time, the most dynamic, realistic football game on the market. It had all twenty-eight teams with only a few well-known quarterbacks blotched out (Jim Kelly, Randall Cunningham, Vinnie Testaverte) for I suppose legal reasons. It actually had all of the teams helmets, which it would put facing one another before every game. Coolest. Graphic. Ever.

I speak of Tecmo Superbowl and the year was roughly 1994. When I got the money, it was one of the first games that I bought once I got my Nintendo.

I loved the game to death. I hated it, too. I hated it so much that my father would hear me cursing at it from the living room and I'd get kicked off the Nintendo for a couple of days because of it. I loved it so much that I would not only play it regularly, but I'd create fictional backstories for my team (is it any wonder that I had so many Friday nights free to play it?) and myself. I got my start as an offensive coordinator with the Houston Oilers (whom I played most of my scrimmages with) and got knocked around from town to town (Los Angeles Raiders, New England, Indianapolis, and the other teams I'd played before setting up a continuity) before finally landing my coaching spot at New Orleans. After a couple seasons I moved on to Minnesota and eventually Atlanta. I usually chose the teams by picking whichever the best team that got last place in its division that I felt I could do the most with. I tried to keep it realistic, with me coming in to "save" a faltering, underperforming team.

At some point I found a formula that really worked for me. A particular non-existent style of offense that centered around ball-control (4/5 running) and spent most of its time letting my stellar defense win the games for me. I'm hardly a tactical genious and it likely never would work in the real world, but it was primarily my way around relying on passing and working around the biggest drawback of the game: It cheats like a mofo!

With the exception of one season running the exceptional Bo Jackson for the LA Raiders, I never was able to win a Superbowl. Why? Let me reiterate: It cheats like a mofo!

There aren't any levels (novice/expert/etc) in the game. Instead, it would gauge how competent you were and then pull tricks out of its hat like a magic rabbit and become as difficult as it felt it needed to be. Moreso, because, as I've mentioned: It cheats like a mofo!

Since it can't do a whole lot to control how well you run the ball or whatnot, it takes exceeding control over the things you can't. During my season with the LA Raiders, for instance, I passed the ball some nine times and eight were interceptions. During my stints with the Saints, Vikings, and Falcons, it injured every important player leaving me with backups that I simply couldn't actually do anything with. Every second or third carry would result in a fumble and every time you didn't call their play (defense consisted of calling the defensive counterpart to their offensive plays), it would result in a touchdown. Even if you did call their plays, they'd still often find a way. In one case, all I had to do was to prevent them from scoring in the closing seconds of the game, so I took control of the safety in case they got it by everyone else.

Of course, they got it by everyone else and so it was just me and him. I was confident that I'd be able to get him until some blocked ran (at twice the rate of the running back!) ahead and not only blocked me, but flicked my player back, disabling him for about five seconds to that the running back could get an insurmountable lead.

The only real superbowl I ever won was when I joined the Philadelphia Eagles about half-way through. The only reason I cruised through the Superbowl was because I was ahead of its calculation curb and never realized that the coach who had gone 2-6 the first half of the season wasn't the same one that was not just winning, but dominating every game afterwards. It got better towards the playoffs, but never got impossible. That was the last Tecmo (half-)season that I played.

So when I took the time over the weekend to hook up my Nintendo, I found myself wanting to play Tecmo Superbowl for old-time's sake. I played a scrimmage game and completely whalloped the other team. The game is pathetically easy up until it decides to become impossibly hard. So I decided to bite the bullet and play another reason.

I decided to take a number of precautionary steps to assure that it wouldn't become impossibly hard. First, I took out the entirety of the starting offense and replaced them with the backups. Secondly, I all but threw a couple games early on so that I wouldn't be 8-0 for its first appraisal of my talents. After the first two games, I was still winning 40-0 wherebouts despite using all my backup players, so I stopped trying to sack them, stopped playing defense, and stopped trying to evade defenders while running the ball. I still won four of my next six games.

Simply put, I had to find a way to convince Tecmo that I didn't know what I was doing. It was essentially the only way I could get it to lay off in the second half of the season as it had in my previous run at it where I actually took my team to the Superbowl. I was trying to hustle a daggum video game machine.

It actually worked because my ninth game, it put me up against Joe Montana's 49ers (arguably the toughest team in the game) and wiped the floor with them (using my backups, but actually trying since I figured it had already done its appraisal). That must have been a mistake, because it would never let me do that again. The next week I played the New York Giants, and it had begun.

To demonstrate what it did, let me show you a list of the starting offensive players that it did not hurt:

Tight End Keith Jackson.

That's it. Hurt my QB, three running backs, both wide recievers, and my kick and punt returners. My backup QB threw seven interceptions that game (he'd only thrown two throughout the first half of the season, when he was starting), I fumbled four times, and the only time they fumbled it prevented a safety, after which they picked up the ball and ran it for 100 yards for the touchdown.

They won 37-0. It wasn't as close as it sounded.

It then readjusted me. I beat the Giants the second time around, but it wasn't for lack of trying on the computer's part. In the field goal attempt that would have clinched the game for me, they blocked it and ran it back to the other one yard-line when I finally tackled him (after being flicked twice by unusually fast blockers). I finished the season 13-3. It was good because I bought myself out of the first week. It didn't do me a whole lot of good, however, because it registered 13-3 as being a particularly good record and my first opponent in the playoffs was the much-maligned Giants.

To give you an idea about how bad the game got, by the second half I was:

Running the ball out of bounds every play to avoid fumbling. Both running backs were injured in the first half.

Never passing, despite the fact that I had Randall Cunningham (a good QB for those of you not-in-the-know). He through four interceptions in the first half.

Took all my players out except for the plays in which I needed to use them in order to avoid injuries.

Playing in the secondary because (a) I could never actually sack anyone (I had over 100 sacks during the season) and (b) its lineman would flick back whoever I was playing. They flicked back Reggie White on every play!

Punted on second downs from my endzone in order to avoid the inevitable safety when they would just magically know whatever play I was going to call, whether it was intuitive or counterintuitive. I did a hailmary on 3rd and 1. It not only called the play, which meant that they blitzed me, I fumbled and they ran it back for a touchdown.

Despite all of this, it wasn't until the last play that they beat me. It was a tied game and heading in to overtime, which of course meant that it was time for a 95-yard run... on the exact play that I called (which would mean an immediate sack in any other game).

What I find most frustrating is that because of the way it goes about it, there really isn't crapola I can do. I would prefer there be some difficulty level setting or something so that I wouldn't spend the first half of my season trying to get the thing to believe I'm bad and then working my butt off the second half of the season just to keep my head above water.

The most annoying thing is that I cannot practice. I can play with the Eagles against the Giants in exhibition mode, but I will destroy them every time. The only time it gets tough is in latter-season play... by the time it's convinced you that you're so good and it's so bad that you can't lose.

Hustle or be hustled, that's the story of Tecmo Superbowl.

I saw the bio on Johnny Cash today. I'd have figured that they'd have at least a screen (Johnny Cash 1934-2003 or whatnot) to remark on his death. By the end of it (unsurprisingly since his death was recent), he was alive and well. Guess this sorta thing takes time.

On par with seeing the Tim McGraw's name at the Firehouse on CMT, it's still weird to me to see Cross Canadian Ragweed videos. I see their bass guitarist and think "Hey, I talked to that guy at the Firehouse while we were waiting to use the john!"

It's also nice that Cody Canada's wife is in the video. Odd, but in the "Constantly" video, which is a sad love song, she looks genuinely happier than she does when I've seen her in real life, where she carries this perpetually tee'd off face.

Just an observation.

A music producer commented on Tim McGraw:

"All the girls adore him, the guys want to be him, and all the mothers want a kid like him. What more could you possibly want from an act?"

Talent?

Yeah, yeah, I'm being snarky. But seriously, all throughout they proclaimed that as the only real "barrier" to his success. Well, yeah, that would be a barrier. It makes me wonder if the only real barrier to my being a nuclear physicist is the fact that I ain't smart enough. Maybe if I looked really good in Wranglers, I could be a successful nuclear physicist just like Tim McGraw is a successful musician.

The second thing was seeing, not one, but TWICE, a quick shot of Tim McGraw's name on a sign from our very own Firehouse (once after he was first signed and once again right before his radio success). The first time was odd enough, but the second time it read:

FRI: Tim McGraw
SAT: Robert Earl Keen

WAY Twilight Zone, man.

WAY!

Say what you will about Former President Bill Clinton. Call him a pathological liar, call him a flawed man who was devoted to the people's good. Accuse him of killing Vincent Foster or credit him with making violins sound just a bit sweeter all across the land. Say what you will, but there is no denying that the man is interesting.

There is also no denying that the man has an interesting past. The little boy from Hope whose father died around when he was born, who got into a fist-fight with his step-father and then turned around, graduated at the top of his class, went to Oxford, and married the most unlikely of spouses. There is no denying that Bill Clinton has an interesting history.

Say what you will about Clinton's eight years as president. Accuse him of laying the groundwork to allow 9/11 to occur or running the most corrupt administration in history. Credit him with neigh-singlehandedly creating the booming economy of the 90's, balancing the budget, and waging a war for privacy rights. However, there is no denying that his presidency was, however flawed or grand, interesting. There is no denying it.

Tonight, I watched CMT's behind the scenes on the making of Tim McGraw. I've said some mean things about that fellow over the years, but I do have to say that Tim has a very unique and interesting history. He assaulted his dad to protect his mom. He was raised by a single, poor mother only to find out that his father was baseball star Tug McGraw. His confrontations with Tug, who denied paternity, the letter he had to send to get Tug to pay for college, and the joyful union of father and son when all the dust had settled.

But if Tim McGraw's past is so darn interesting, why in tarnation is his music so darned bland? I simply do not understand this. How can someone who has lead such an interesting life write, "co-write", and pick such uninteresting material. If interesting begets interesting, as in the case of Bill Clinton, then how can it beget the vapidity of Tim McGraw's music? If I had half his experiences, I'd have fifty lifetimes of material to write about... let me rephrase, I'd have enough to make at least one musical album full of interesting songs.

I do not understand...

I'd named him Che, from a conversation I had with Mike about him. I'd spelled Chihuahua Chiuaua, he pointed out that it the word has three H's. My initial instinct was then to name him Triple-H, which is the name of a WWE wrestler. After a careful analysis, I figured that didn't fit. Mike and I then talked about how silly the Spanish are with their silent H's... so I then thought "Echay" (Spanish pronunciation of the letter) but that didn't roll off the tongue, so Che he became. He never really responded to it, though.

He was a remarkably sweet little guy. He was enormously affectionate. He kept trying to dig himself closer and closer to me and last night, out of the blue started licking my tummy.

It would have actually worried me less if he'd been misbehaving. I put him in my room, left, and sat on the staircase to see if he'd start barking. He didn't (whined a bit, but a quiet whine). He peed on my favorite shirt, but thankfully the shirt wasn't white. If the dog was bad then I'd just have let it go with no real qualms about it, but he wasn't and I became increasingly worried about finding him a home.

Buck is something of a country boy who lives in the complex. I'd never actually talked to him before, but his father asked me what the status on the repavement was and I took the opportunity to ask them if they knew anyone who lost a small dog. Well, one thing lead to another and Buck came up to see him.

He noticed right off that he'd just been neutered because he still had stitches. I mentioned something about trying to find the real owner. He nodded, but I don't think he will.

I didn't tell him I'd named the dog, figuring that he'd want to name it himself anyhow.

That may be just as well. I don't know if he was lost or abandoned (I thought abandoned until I saw the neutering stitches), but in any case the important thing was that the dog found a home and wouldn't have to go to the SPCA. To the family of the dog (which probably don't live around here, Buck saw it working on a paint job way on the other side of the complex a couple days ago), hopefully they'll get another one and that'll be a net gain for animals saved from having been put down.

It was a good day.