The Washington Post is, as one might expect, chronicling the Democratic presidential campaigns. I found this cute:

Dean's elves retaliated in kind, writing a Dickensian exchange that occurs between Gephardt after winning the 1988 Iowa caucus, and the Gephardt of today. In this fictional visit from the ghost of campaigns future, the younger Gephardt is incredulous that his future self has not done better.

"So honestly, in 16 years we're still a congressman?" 1988 Gephardt asks.

"You lost the House? We had it for 40 years!"

"I'm a perennial loser? This has to be some sort of nightmare. Come on, slap me, I'll wake up in the West Wing."

The younger Gephardt continues: "You really stood up to the Republicans, though, right?"

Replies the future Gephardt: "Does going to war count?"

Chuck and his wife Tiffany saw Inventing the Abbotts on their first date way back when.

Eel and I didn't have a first date, per se, though the first movie we saw together was Hedwig and the Angry Inch. The fact that I put on a movie about a transsexual rock star for our first movie was a testament to how confident I was about our budding relationship.

The first movie I saw with Anna was, of all things, First Kid. It was a comedy starring Sinbad as a secret service agent looking after the President's son. Bill Clinton made a cameo as the former president asking if President Davenport had seen the saxophone he accidentally left behind in the White House. That we saw that for our first date and that there was actually a second date was a sign that we were in for a long haul.

Other odd first date movies included Mulholland Drive (that was complete with a lesbian lovemaking scene), and 40 Days and 40 Nights (an erotic comedy about sex and lack thereof).

Andrea Harris is retiring from the blog world. Andrea has always been one of those bloggers that I needed to read more than I did. I didn't overlook her because she's not a good blogger (quite the contrary), but because I find myself gravitating towards those that comment my blog, I know personally, or show up on my referral logs (note: if you're a blogger that reads this blog, a good way to get me to read yours is to either comment on mine or use your own page to get to mine). Anyhow, Andrea was a real pro (for this inherently amateur enterprise, anyhow) and consistently one of the best out there. In fact, if I had to list ten blogs that I wish mine were more like, she'd likely be on that list (as would similarly retired Page from LastPage).

Like Kevin, I've considered hanging it up myself on a few occasions and, like Kevin, the feeling passes. Most hiatuses start off with me thinking "maybe I should be pursuing other things..." but when I stop, I have waaaay too many "I should blog on this!" thoughts (I have about three of those for every post I actually write). When I hung up RAW1.0 over on Blogspot time was the biggest issue. At other points it's just been the hassle of arguments I don't want to be in.

I'm not much of a book reader like Kevin is, but I notice my book writing has declined since I've started blogging. There's an interesting trade-off, both reading and writing short snippits compared to larger works. The payoffs are vastly different and it's hard to say which is preferable.

When reading blogs, you get a much wider variety of information (or commentary) and there's a sense of accomplishment in that. For me there is, anyhow. The same goes for writing. If I find something interesting to write about I don't need to find a way to work it into a novel or turn it in to a short story. Novels and short stories are fulfilling things for me to write, but they're also a lot of work and there are a lot of ideas that that are good enough to carry a blog post but not enough to carry a short story or a detour in a novel.

In that sense, blogging has actually helped my novel writing. I noticed that when I go back and edit Something So Perfect or Slaughter Book I, there are some scenes that didn't entirely fit that I can rewrite into something more appropriate. I don't need to put a peculiar experience that happened to me or someone I know. I don't feel as much the need to "represent" certain experiences, which leaves me more room to represent the experiences of the characters in question.

The other, and perhaps bigger tradeoff, is immediate feedback. If I post something people can put their thoughts right there and I can look at it in a new way or my subjective experience is widened by those that choose to leave a comment. While writing novels give me a great sense of fulfillment, few have actually read them (my own fault, in part, as I still owe Callie a copy of At Heaven's Door) and even those that do give me their more general thoughts instead of one of (what I perhaps arrogantly consider) the many thoughtful ideas and issues the novel brings forth.

On the other hand, blogging can feel from a writer's perspective (and I can imagine a reader's too) like "all icing and no cake." When I look back on my accomplishments, my novels rate pretty high and (at least right now) the blog doesn't so much. The coverage here is a mile wide and an inch deep. The ideas are never explored as fully as I would like and the longer I explore something, the less response it seems to generate. In that way I'm a poor fit for blogging since I tend to be a probative thinker and blogging tends itself to more cursory coverage.

Then again, that's one of the reasons that I started blogging to begin with. I want to get certain thoughts out of my head and I want to start writing more and writing less carefully so that I can get more experience actually producing instead of simply creating in my mind.

So RAWbservations isn't going anywhere any time soon. There will be some ebb and flow as I hopefully get back to writing more ambitious projects in the future. But for now it's fun, I enjoy doing it, and I enjoy hearing people's thoughts up against my own.

California Bears 52, Virginia Tech Hokies 49
Washington St. Cougars 28, Texas Longhorns 20



With those two losses I'm all but thrown out of the football pool. Unfortunately, in both cases I changed my prediction before the game, but it doesn't count.

Other than the underdogs winning, what does this games have in common? Mainly that the overdog didn't want to be there. That's why I changed my predictions.

Virginia Tech was, at one point, a national contender. They handily defeated the Miami Hurricanes and had only a single loss to the upset-proned upstarts West Virginia (who themselves had almost beaten Miami). They would probably be the odd men out even if they had gone the rest of the season undefeated, but they didn't and lost their last few games and dropped out from even being ranked. For a team hoping for national contention, the Insight Bowl was a bit of a letdown and they voiced their displeasure.

Texas lost national contention when they lost early to Arkansas and then had their annual beating at the Red River Shootout against Oklahoma, but they were poised for a BCS game until Oklahoma lost against Kansas State, filling the Big 12's BCS slots and sending them for another trip to San Diego for the Holiday Bowl. They've been to San Diego so many times Mack Brown's frequent flier punchcard is about to land him a free pass. The players griped and the result, as with Virginia Tech, was a loss.

Football is probably the most psychological of the major sports. Unlike baseball which is largely a series of individual performances and basketball where there is often plenty of time and points left to score when a team gets on a roll, in football there are so many variables and so many contributors to the game the team becomes a lot more than the sum of its parts. The spirit of the team therefore matters all the more. As Texas and Virginia Tech proved - and Oklahoma before them - if a team doesn't want to win it rarely will.

I was rooting for Virginia Tech and Texas both for a variety of reasons. My father and brother are UT grads and Eel's father went to Virginia Tech (and besides that, Hokies is such a cool team name). So in both cases I got a sinking feeling when I read what the players had to say.

I'm not that disappointed that Texas and VTech lost. It's football and on any given Saturday that type of thing happens. To be sure, neither California nor Washington State were rollovers. WSU only had one more loss than UT and California was on a roll at the end of the season, but if UT and VT were both as good as they thought they were (ie "better" than the bowls they were sent to), the least they could do is come out playing.

The failure in large part resides with the coach. In this case Mack Brown and whateverthehokiescoachnameis. I don't know what Mack Brown was saying to his team - or what Bob Stoops was saying prior to Kansas State - but it's a coach's job to keep the troops rallied and he clearly did not do that. I will have more (positive and negative) to say about Brown later, but it's rather hard to root for a team (be it UT or VT) that complains about a midling bowl when UH alums everywhere were breaking out the champaign for one of the minors.

"Mistakes are like horses. We could ride them different if we tried," -written on the wall of the bathroom at the Cheatham Street Warehouse in San Marcos.

Reckless Kelly was one of the first Texas alt-country bands I became familiar with. The late band Blind Luck opened for them at the late live music venue The Fabulous Satellite Lounge and I enjoyed their music. Unfortunately, so does half of Houston and I've not been inclined to go see all that many of their live music shows because of the large crowds that they attract. That said, I've enjoyed their CDs and their unique mixture of Americana and country with their inventive lyrics and distinct lead singer, Willy Braun.

I finally got around to buying their new CD, Under the Table & Above the Sun, about a month ago with a handful of others (Roger Creager's "Long Way to Mexico," both of Thrift Store Cowboys' CD's, Alejandro Escoveda's "Man Under the Influence," and Max Stallings's "One of the Ways"). Dr. Whited has been chroncling some of the changes in the band over the last year or two and a change in sound, so I wasn't sure what, if anything, to expect from it.

However, I can joyfully report that it has floated to the top of my recent CD purchases and may well be the best new CD I bought this year.

I wasn't quite this impressed with it the first time I played it through. There seemed to be some good ones, but a lot of filler. Besides that, their sound has changed quite a bit. It took me a few listens to realize how different the sound was independent of the different lyrics.

RK's specialty has been broken-up-and-pissed-off songs. In fact, when I've been broken-up-and-pissed-off in the past, RK has been the first place that I've turned. There isn't so much of that in "Under the Table & Above the Sun" and it's been replaced by something a little more complicated. A little more, I think, grown up.

Two songs that jumped into mind after listening to the CD were Paul Young's classic "What Becomes of the Broken Hearted?" and Roger Creager's "Fun All Wrong." There's a certain feeling of killing time, avoidance, and uncertainty. Though the UtT&AtS track "Set Me Free" and "You Don't Want Me Around" were not my favorite tracks off the CD, they sum up the CD pretty nicely. It is, in a way, coming to terms with a loss and wanting to move forward without a clear idea of what moving forward actually means.

Maybe I enjoyed this CD so much because I could relate. Part of it, though, is that I can sum up the CD. Too many CDs are released these days that are just a collection of disparate tracks. There's not a feeling that the CD actually captures a particular time or story. I'm not suggesting that CDs should be a collection of redundant songs or that it should be chronological songs telling a story (UtT&AtS is neither), but rather when I look at a CD the CD should give me something to reflect on independent of the individual songs. That's what this CD does in such a way that I have not experienced since Great Divide's "Remain."

That's not to say that the individual tracks are not worth listening to. In fact, tracks 3-6 are the best four-punch I have heard from a CD in a long, long time. I can (and have) listened to these four songs in repetition over and over again. Desolation Angels (#3) really sets the pace for the entire CD in my view. It's roadworthy music worthy of Bleu Edmondson or Cross Canadian Ragweed (all princes of roadworthy music) with a uniquely weighted feel. Everybody (#4) is probably the most radio-friendly song on the record, but there is a hypnotic quality. The sincerity in Braun's voice and the band's sound carries otherwise lackluster lyrics into being a song I've had stuck in my head for hours a time without getting tired of it. I Saw It Coming (#5) is a giant metaphor for gambling and the relationship process that is executed admirably. Vancouver (#6) is probably the best song on the CD and one of the best songs I've heard in a while. It's one one of those rare songs that memorably carries itself without a refrain.

The CD is not without its faults, however, and it's not for everyone. Die-hard Reckless Kelly fans may miss the old sound more than they appreciate the new. My review may be as glowing as it is because I wasn't quite as attached as others have been to the traditional RK. The new CD is considerably less raw and more polished. Considering RK's grumbly and intrinsically raw sound, a lot has been lost and changed in the translation. If I approached this purely as a Reckless Kelly CD (or, for that matter, if I hadn't already been warned that it'd be different), I might have been disappointed.

The biggest fault of the CD ties in with its mildly more radio-friendly sound: the repetition of lyrics. Otherwise really good songs like Willamina (#7) are diminished by the repetition of the refrain four times going. It makes the songs more memorable but, at least for me, it makes them a lot less enjoyable. That said, for a more radio-friendly sound, I don't often actually hear stuff this good on the radio itself.

For every food and drink product out there, there are ten imitators. Sometimes the difference in taste is negligable. Malt-o-meal cereal is almost indistinguishable from Kelogg's, for instance. One area where this isn't generally the case is the soft drink world. Coke flopped in its immitation of Mountain Dew with Surge. H-E-B's and Sam's have their own soft drink lines though they pale in comparison with the real thing.

However, I must credit Kroger's Big-K line for doing an admirable job of delivering a pretty decent drink for a good price. Their Mountain Dew rip off (Citrus Drop - Pop the Drop, man!!) is tons better than Surge ever was and is in someways as good as the genuine MD article. It has a spikier, more sugary taste. Big-K Cola itself (Coke rip-off) doesn't compare quite as favorably, but still blows Sam's and HEB out of the water. Their punch drinks are as good, if not better, than Welch's. Their diet lemonade is also really good.

Unfortunately I don't think they have Kroger's in Idaho, so I'm gonna get my fill of Citrus Drop and the rest while I can!

... and it didn't even require his house burning down to get him there! It only required a colleague being slammed by a car. My father's sister married in to a firefighting family. My Uncle Bruce is a lobbyist for the firefighters pension fund and my cousins Craig and Todd are firefighters. One of Craig's fellow firefighters was injured recently, but apparently he's doing better now.

When you talk as much as Rush Limbaugh does, you're bound to contradict yourself eventually. That said, I found this to be pretty funny.

I am not a proponent of the so-called "Right to Privacy" and since I haven't been illegally using painkillers, my opposition still stands. Until such a time as I am caught illegally using substances, then I reserve the right to change my opinion to pull my ass out of the frying pan.

Just so we're clear...

Once upon a time, there was a Goddess named Sarah. Sarah Goddess was this fourteen year old girl that I was obsessed with for 570 days. I'll tell the story of her later, but right now I'm going to tell the story of the girl that looked like a Goddess.

Looking at pictures of Sarah and Joy respectively, I'm not sure where the notion that they looked alike entered my mind. But somehow, this girl in my lunch period reminded me of Sarah Goddess. I didn't know her name, so I called her The Sarah Lookalike. There was this boy that I played baseball with and went to school with in junior high named Bryan. Bryan was a nice enough fellow, but his mind was sometimes a dime shy of a cola due to some disorder. This effect his speech and gave it a slurring sound. So when he said her name (which was "Julie") the Sarah Look-a-like had a name: Joy.

Joy had the same lunch period as Jay and myself one semester. Because of her resemblence (in my mind) of the Goddess, she and this other girl I named Brittany because she fit the description given of a girl I knew online of the same name caught my eye. I am a skilled people-watcher. When I am looking at someone, I generally do so as inconspicuously as possible and I can honestly say that either they don't notice that I'm looking at them or they're looking for me to be looking at them. The biggest thing I was was sit at the end of the table so if I looked forward, she'd be in my peripheral sight.

Jay and I would come up with the worst pick-up lines ever and she provided ample entertainment as she talked to her friends. As time progressed, Jay started having a minor little thing for this girl for reasons other than that she looked like a Goddess. I looked her up in the old Seabrook yearbook and discovered that Joy and I appeared to have a mutual acquaintance: Ashley, the youngest daughter of a family mine takes a trip with to Pensacola year in and year out. They both went to Seabrook, were in the same grade, and played on the tennis team.

The next church youthgroup meeting I asked Ashley about the girl. She was not remarkably helpful. They knew each other but only in passing and she didn't know if Joy was seeing anyone. "Oh well," I thought.

The next day at school while I was waiting outside my chemistry to talk to Jay (who was headed for physics) Ashley walked by and said, "Julie says she wants you to stop stalking her."

"WHAT?!"

I chased Ashley down and got a full explanation. Apparently Joy had seen me looking at her on a couple of occasions. Let me emphasize that I neither looked at her intensely or even flirtingly. Never for more than a couple seconds at a time and I look at all kinds of people for a couple seconds at a time. Even ones that don't look like Goddesses. Joy was obviously paranoid, I reasoned. And stuck up as most girls, even if I had been looking at her flirtingly, would take it as something of a compliment. I'd expect that kind of self-importance from a Clear Lake Intermediate girl, but I expected better from a Seabrook one.

Shortly afterwards the semester ended and I was transferred out of that lunch. Periodically we'd be taking a test and I would be in that lunch again, sitting at the same table with Jay (and now Oz) on one side and Joy on the other. If Joy thought I was stalking, I would show her what stalking was.

Every day I was going to have that lunch, I dressed in all black. I lowered my head and looked her square in the eye. Poor Jay was an innocent bystanderI imitated her movements as if I were reporting to Jay (who was smitten, lest we forget) her every action. Funnest. Lunches. Ever!

Any chance that Jay had of talking to Joy (which were slim anyway thanks to Oz) were dashed. A sad casualty of war.

Back in our high school days, Jay and I had two friends. Well, we had more than two friends, but there are two friends in particular that I find myself thinking about from time to time: Chip and Oz.

Jay and I had known Chip since elementary school. Chip was a heavy, boisterous fellow. Did I mention he was heavy? That's important. I'm not sure how Jay and I became friends with him individually or together, but it was not a developement he and I were altogether pleased with. Chip was heavy. Chip was obnoxious. Chip was deeply, deeply unpopular.

Chip was always a nice enough guy, but he was sometimes a little too booksmart for his own good. He was a know-it-all who acted smarter than everyone else. Of course, he was smarter than most high school students, but he didn't know how to convey that without coming across as extremely arrogant. That, combined with his weight, combined with overprotective parents and social inexperience put him in a box that he would never really be able to get out of.

Because he didn't have (m)any friends, the fact that Jay and I tolerated him made us among his best. The truth is that (a) we didn't know how to tell him to buzz off and (b) our parents were friends with his parents. Nonetheless, there we were. There were times when the friendship was worthwhile both ways. We all drew comic books at the time and Shadowguy (my character) and the Deatomizer (his character) eventually became part of the same comic book universe and that was pretty cool.

For the most part, though, we wished he would just go away. In high school, we ducked him at lunch and would move around day in and day out until he got the message, which to his credit he did. Nothing we could do would seem to make him stop considering us his friend, though. We could never find it within us to be unadulturatedly cruel to him, so we never really crossed that line. I can only think of one time in art class when we took it a little further than usual and he declared an end to our friendship. He preceeded to sit at the other end of the table with his "new friends," two guys that were bigger jerks to him than we were. He'd loudly talk about at us how nice it was to not be with any false-friends.

Another friend of ours was Oz. I have to take the blame for Oz penetrating our inner circle because he was verily my friend first. Oz's mother and my own were members of the same charity group. He was only eleven days older but was a grade ahead. Unfortunately, I placed above my age level in Bay Area Youth Baseball and so we were on the same team year in and year out, so we became friends. At Seabrook intermediate and later at Clear Lake High, that friendship unfortunately continued and through me Jay became equally weighted by his friendship.

Like Chip, Oz was also unpopular. Oz was not particularly heavy or even necessarily unattractive. There were various handicaps he had, such as his overactive sweat glands. On the other hand mine are overactive too and I was never as unpopular as he was. There was something else about him. It's hard to pinpoint exactly except to say that he was a complete assmuch. Oz was extraordinarily racist, arrogant, and self-centered. When his father got fired, he used that to bilk me out of $30.

At the time Jay liked this girl named Simone. We tried to recruit her to sit with us in the mornings before class started and succeeded for a while until she refused to sit with us any longer. Why? Oz. She couldn't take him anymore and to be honest, we couldn't blame her. Jay and I primarily got by with our very high toleration for the obnoxious. There was this other girl named Joy that used to sit down the way from Jay and I at lunch. Jay had a thing for her. When I got transferred out of that lunch period he had the perfect opportunity to be annexed into their lunch group if not for Oz transferring in. He longer had the rationale ("I'm eating alone") to go over there and even so, he couldn't go over there with Oz because he would embarass the living daylights out of him. For that reason and another, he never took his chance with her.

Oz and Chip both had that effect. There are a number of friends we could have made were it not for the friends that we already had. In the past I've always clumped Oz and Chip together in their mind as friends who cost us friends.

The other day Dad and I went to my old elementary school for the Cub Scouts' pancake breakfast. I ran in to Chip's mother, there. She was always an extraordinarily nice woman. She asked how I was doing and I told her about what I was up to. I asked how Chip was doing. He apparently decided to go into IT work instead of be a vet. He graduated from Texas A&M about a year and a half ago and has been unable to find work. He's back living with the folks, but he met a girl online and they're going to be getting married.

I found myself overjoyed that Chip had met someone (he never dated anyone in high school). I was really sorry about his job situation and tried to figure out if there was anything I could do to help. When I got back to Gattaca, I put in his name for a referral. We get paid $1500 for everyone we refer, but since I won't be there anymore after the four month waiting period I wouldn't see a dime of that. But I felt that if anyone would fit in with the Gattaca environment, Chip would. To give you an idea of how well Chip deals with authority, one time he was over at my house and asked if he could use the bathroom. I very sarcastically said no. Half an hour he asked, "I'm sure you have a good reason, but why can't I use the bathroom?"

It's funny how similarly I thought of Chip and Oz back in the day because when I look back now I see that they couldn't have been more different. Chip was the victim of a weight problem and poor socialization skills. Oz, on the other hand, had the tools to be accepted but was just a jackass. I was happy that Chip was doing well and sorry that he wasn't. With Oz, the pettiest parts of me would be happiest to find out that he's still reviled wherever he is and whatever he's doing.

When I think of what I might have done differently in my life, I would have told Oz to buzz off. It turned out, Mom hated his mom just as much as I hated him. It's a more complicated matter with Chip, but I would like to think I'd have found some way to deal with the situation that wouldn't have involved me constantly puncturing his ego while not allowing his unpopularity to pull me down and his annoyingness to annoy me.

I feel bad that I was as nice to Oz as I was and that I was as mean to Chip as I was.

Unlike apartments, houses are not always cleaned before you move in. Sometimes you're left with remnants of people that lived their before. Take our bedroom doors, for instance. Jaquin's door has pink glittery letters that says "Jessica's room."

Me? My door has a sticker with a ninja on it.

When I grow up, I want my bedroom door to have a sticker of a ninja on it.

It's sooooo cool.

"There always seemed to be more important things to our relationship than whether or not we were actually getting along," -RAW, speaking to Audrey of their time timultuous time together.

In January of 2000 I had accidentally wiped out my mp3 collection and was needing something to listen to at the dorms. I found this web site called IUMA that had a ton of free (and legal) downloads. I scoured the web page and listened to one artist after another. The artists and recordings ranged from very amateur to near professional. Unfortunately, there was only one or two downloadables for each artist, but it was a place to start.

A couple months later we were celebrating Brian's birthday. Brian's sister had heard this great band called Crash Worship that happened to be playing at the Fitzgerald's. We suffered through a horrible opening act and by the time Crash Worship took the stage, we were already pretty tired. Their music was less than impressive to most of us and we opted instead to go downstairs where this funk band was playing. I'm not much of a funk person, but it was a great time and we got pictures of Brian that will forever provide blackmail material.

On our way out, Jay pointed to a poster and commented, "Hey, it's that Phil Pritchett guy."

Phil Pritchett was one of the many artists that I downloaded from IUMA. The one track he had available, Colorado on Trial, was good enough to make the handful of songs that I sent his way. When I thought about it, it made a lot of sense that he'd be playing in Texas because the song mentioned, in passing, that Texas was his home state. We took note of the day and Brian, Jay and I decided that we'd check out the show. With any luck, we'd have as good a time as we had with that funk band. I wasn't a live music junkie at the time, but little did I know that I was about to become one.

We picked up some more songs from mp3.com and felt that we had ourselves a winner for a night out. The first show was good if not great. Unfortunately, other than the handful of CDs that I'd bought I was pretty unfamiliar with his music. I took the plunge and bought his then-latest CD, Suburban Legends. I listened to it over and over and over again. It was more than just a good CD, it was the first unique CD I'd heard in ages. It was completely unlike anything on the radio. Not to say that it was uber-alternative (it wasn't) and didn't have its poppy moments (it did), but it was just a CD full of well-written music that hadn't been glossed over or distorted or crystallized or whatever it is that makes a typical Top 40 CD sound like it does.

Poor Adam - my roommate at the time - had to endure that CD playing 24/7. Brian, Jay, and myself went to see him again a couple months later when he played. I bought his two other CDs and the new release he'd just released (Heritage Way). The three of us would go to Phil show after Phil show whenever he played at Fitzgerald's. Eventually we started meeting in other towns and catching shows there. Jay had been my best friend since the sixth grade and a really good friend since the first grade. Brian was a more recent friend largely of circumstance (he was a member of No-Lyfe and lived right by Anna). Brian and Jay had become friends while competing for a girl. But through the Phil shows, our individual friendships became a collective friendship.

Several months after that, we attended a show in Austin. It was a different show in a number of respects. It went on for about two-and-a-half hours and at the end of it, he announced that it would be his last show in Austin. He was moving to Tennessee to try to write some sense into Nashville. His last show in Texas was in Houston on the downstairs stage of Fitzgerald's.

It was a sad day in a number of respects. Jay, Brian, and I would continue to hang out doing No-Lyfe related stuff along with Adam and just hanging out in general. Instant messaging kept us close even after Brian moved from Pasadena to Austin and later San Marcos. Any time Phil made it back to Texas (which was every few months) we'd make a point to see his solo accoustic shows. He eventually came back for good and formed a new band, dedicating himself to rock. His new booking agent oddly has Phil mostly singing at country venues such as the Firehouse and Cheatham Street Warehouse.

A week or so back, I got a call from Jay that said that Phil was doing a show at Fitz. Since it was around the holidays we could all go. In a way it was like nothing has changed except that the three of us are closer now than we were then. Phil now has a three-person band instead of a four with a rock sound (though he still does a mean "Whiskey River").

After the show we went to the Jaliscience. They've taken down the Selena and James Dean posters that made the place unique, but the burritos are still huge and still $4.50. In a couple months, I'm moving to Idaho. In about six months, Brian is moving to Japan. Jay's plans are more in the air right now, but he will end up in Florida or California soon enough. Times like these are running out.

Phil is a great musician and I would have gone and had a great time along. With everyone there, it goes beyond enjoyment to a series of moments, and a night, I will not forget for a long, long time.

Cold: 50 degree weather. (Hey, I was raised in Houston. To us, 50 degrees is cold)

Colder: 50 degree weather with wind and rain (Like now, for instance)

Coldest: Driving for an hour and a half in 50 degree weather with cold winds and rain pouring through your open window. (Still no AC in the car, no defog, have to keep it open so I can see)

Kevin's most recent digs at Kenny Chesney reminds me of something. I was watching something on CMT about county musicians fashion accesories (sad, but true). They talked about Chesney's shell necklace that he apparently always wears. They went on to talk about Chesney more generally and suggesting that he's on his way to becoming a beach music icon in the same vein as Jimmy Buffet.

My family annually takes a trip to Pensacola, Florida. Lovely beaches, lovely town. There are a lot of great restaurants there and most of them have a live act in the waiting area throughout most of the evening. They are invariably cover artists with Hawaiian shifts that play Brown-Eyed Girl every other song and a bunch of other laid-back oldie beach music. They play a lot of Jimmy Buffet. A lot.

Heaven help us all if my family keeps the tradition alive and I drag my future wife and kids out to Pensacola to hear one Kenny Chesney cover artist after another.

[shudder]

I wish I was writing a post that said "Great work, Cougars!" or even "Good try, maybe next time!"

Unfortunately, the news of the game isn't UH's triple-overtime 54-48 loss but instead the ensuing riot that occured on the field afterwards. It's put me in a rather bad mood.

For those of you out of the loop, a fight broke out after Hawaii managed to stop the Cougars from scoring and won the game. No indication as to how it got started but it spread like an Oregon wildfire until the police (among others) broke it up. The notable clip (that will be shown over and over and over again) will be Houston's Damien West charging into a group of Warriors armed with a helmet.

This is the first altercation that the Cougars have had in my recollection. We've also had no embarassments such as players arrested for breaking and entering or assault. Ordinarily this type of thing wouldn't be a problem, but for us it could be.

Unlike the University of Hawaii and TCU, we don't have a hometown bowl (the Houston Bowl has no affiliations with the C*USA) that will always take us in. We also have attendance problems and don't travel well. It comes with being the non-traditional institution that UH (wonderfully) is.

This game was going to be our coming out party where we show off our outstanding high-powered offense and mesmirizing gameplay.

I'm happy to have attended the University of Houston and believe it to be a great school. But it has an image problem and a number of setbacks that keep us from being recognized as the major institution that it is. From an athletics standpoint, we have an non-traditional student body that keeps our attendance and school spirit low.

Instead we're going to be remembered for West and the helmet he was carrying.

Unlike Houston, this is not Hawaii's first altercation. In fact, there was a remarkably similar one with the University of Cincinnati , headless helmet and all.

Did I mention that the helmet West was holding appears to be a Hawaii one? I suspect he was ungraciously returning a helmet that was rather ungraciously given to him.

But Houston is the team that lost (as was Cincinnati) and by default people are going to assume that Houston started it.

For my part, I really don't know. Hawaii's reaction to winning was, in the words of an otherwise staid ESPN recap, "hysterical." On the other hand, it seems unlikely that a Hawaiian player thought to himself "now that we beat them on the field let's tarnish our victory by getting into a fight!"

Then again, there were a number of scuffles during the game. Even before the altercation, I was surprised that few or no flags were thrown on this score. But that wasn't much of a surprise because I was less than impressed with the officiating overall (as were the announcers). Anyhow, scuffles during a game have been known to be settled after a game (in fact, a Hawaii player said that he wanted a rematch against a player he fought in the Cincy brawl).

In all honesty the coverage seems to be pretty even-handed. The announcers said "Hawaii can't seem to be good winners and Houston can't seem to be good losers" which is pretty fair for a couple of announcers that have been covering Hawaii a lot more than Houston. That might change (either way) once the tapes are reviewed more closely, but I'm happy that no one outside the fan forums are rushing to judgment (particularly since the rush would be unfavorable to us).

Houston coach Art Briles appears to be sticking by his team (Cincinnati's coach did not) but says that disciplinary action may be taken. I figure Hawaii's Jones will stick by his as well. It's really a shame because Hawaii has a lot of Houston ties (Jones used to coach with the Oilers and Gamblers and a lot of Warriors are Houstonians) and Jones and Briles were very complimentary to one another all week long.

No matter how you cut it, though, this was a bad affair for both programs. Houston is going to have to work that much harder to be invited to bowl games in the future and Hawaii has another mark against their already lackluster disciplinary record.

At the same time, I can't help but wonder about the shock and dismay at a bunch of people that hit each other for four straight hours hitting each other after the game. Not to say that this sort of thing is okay or should be tolerated, but the more I think about it the more I can't believe it doesn't happen a heck of a lot more often.

[Image stolen from Greg Wythe]

Hope y'all have a good one!

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[via Lex]

Over at LewRockwell.com of all places, an interesting perspective linking the BCS with Satan. He does make some good points on the virtues of bowl games:

I, for one, like the idea of bowl games. National championship-winning coach Gene Stallings made one point: With playoffs leading to a championship game, we have one winner and the rest are losers. With 25 bowl games, we have 25 winners. My own favorite point is that with bowl games, we get to see what the coaches are really capable of. Injuries and player talent mean less, and brains mean more, when teams have a month to prepare. Further, it should be noted that the team that wins the championship isn’t always the best team, particularly when there is only one championship game played. The NBA and MLB have seven-game championship series. In a single game, a chance play, bad officiating, or a couple of star players having good or bad days (or the flu) can be the winning factor. With a month to prepare, these factors – and random nonsense in general – mean less than the quality of the overall program. Finally, the real reason we don’t have the playoff system is that the bowl sponsors and managers contribute a lot of money to the NCAA, and the NCAA isn’t ready to rule against them.

Another demographic factor to consider is the widening gender gap. Much was made of the Soccer Moms and their support for President Clinton in the 90's. Then Bush won without the women's vote in 2000 and people realized that women drifting to the Democratic Party has been met by men drifting to the Republican Party and the Soccer Moms were met with the NASCAR Dads.

An interesting spin on this which I've heard before is how much education makes a difference. In general, Democrats are an odd combination of the most and least educated Americans. Republicans generally cover the middle ground with folks that have enough education for a comfortable career but view formal education as a means to an end and therefore are disinclined to go for what they view as unnecessary higher degrees.

However, increasingly educated women are flocking to the Democratic Party and educated men are shifting to the GOP:

As education increases, the gender gap grows.

An analysis of more than 40,000 interviews for the USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll from January through November this year shows the trend. Among those with a high school diploma or less, men were inclined by a single percentage point, 45% to 44%, to vote Democratic. Women leaned toward the Democrats by 11 percentage points, 50% to 39%. That's a partisan gap between the sexes of 10 percentage points.

For those who had taken some college courses but not graduated, that gender gap grew to 15 percentage points. Among those with a college degree, it rose to 20. And for voters who had taken postgraduate courses, it reached 28 percentage points - almost triple the gender difference among the least-educated voters.

The entire article is worth a read.

It's interesting how these things play out. My father is an old-style FDR Democrat (economically liberal but socially conservative) and Mom generally votes for Republicans on the basis that they're "our crooks" instead of "their crooks." So it's actually the opposite phenomenon there. While most of the women in my past lean pretty far to the left, the only affair that lasted longer than a year was with Anna, who was largely apolitical but leaned slightly to the right.

I think some differences are often a good thing. I notice that most of the leads in my stories come from different political backgrounds than their romantic partners and I don't think it's a coincidence. Of course, if people differ too much (or are too vocal about minor disagreements) it can be quite problematic. People often have different political views because they interpret current events so differently as to live in entirely different worlds. That has certainly been the case for me in the past.

Since Eel and I are apparently both Democrats, I suppose we will thankfully avoid this issue altogether.

Back in my CSPAN junkie days (you know, when I actually had CSPAN), I remember a black lady addressing folks at a pro-life convention saying, to the rallying crowd, "We'll keep having our babies, they'll keep aborting theirs, and eventually we'll outnumber them!"

This all ties in to the argument that demographics ultimately favor Republicans due to procreation rates among conservatives and liberals. If you think about it, there's something to the argument. Republicans tend to be more family-oriented, religious people have more kids, and religious people are more often than not Republicans.

The Democratic counterargument is based largely on immigration and that polls of twenty-somethings demonstrate a slight leftward tilt. That too makes sense when you think about people who became interested in politics during the Clinton-Gingrich years (not hard to tell who resonated better among young people) and have finally gotten out from under their parents rule and thus are not receptive to the government telling them what to do.

So taking immigration out of the equation, the question is whether or not children born from conservative homes will themselves grow up to be conservative. It's a question only time will be able to answer, ultimately.

And so it is with the subject of abortion. The Catholic Exchange is celebrating a poll released in November that states 72% of teenagers believe abortion is morally wrong. Will the same people still believe that as they get into their twenties and probably have sexual encounters with people that they wouldn't want a child with? Studies suggest that kids are more likely than not to take on the beliefs of their parents, though it's not absolute and there are definite culture shifts where large numbers reject the attitudes of their parents (the 60's are a prime example).

So is this a culture shift?

It very well might be. Contraception, abortion, and altered attitude towards unmarried adults and childless couples are some of the accomplishments of liberals over the last century or so and they've changed a lot of minds. The results may not change anyone's mind, but are likely to change the numbers.

It's often said that the people that most ought to have children rarely do because of their careers and interest and that those that really don't need to procreate breed like rabbits. For those of a conservative mindset, that's true insofar as those less likely to be able to financially support children (and would thus require government aid) have them while the well-to-do are doing other things. For those from a liberal perspective, those that are more likely to procreate are more likely to vote the other way. This is especially true as the Catholic vote is slipping away from the Democrats as a reliable voting bloc.

It's possible that there will be no shift at all. Entertainment media, which helps form the opinions of a lot of people, is very strongly pro-choice. Also, from a purely self-interested standpoint, it's advantageous for young people to be pro-choice because for women it means they can dispose of the unwanted unborn and for men it means that women are more likely to want to have sex more often since they won't have to worry about becoming parents.

On the other hand, many of those people will eventually settle down and have families. At that point they will they hold on to the teachings they were raised with or the ones they formed before they were ready to settle down? I'd guess it would more likely be the former, but it could well be the latter.

One never really knows.

... about Texas Tech's football coach Mike Leach:

Fact is, Leach is Mormon, never played football, has a law degree, has MANY weird nuances, and isn't Texan . . . so of course the local good 'ol boy system is gonna throw a fit when Leach drank.

[From Coogfans]

I had two points riding on Kansas to beat NC State and lost. I picked Boise State over TCU and won, but I didn't wager enough to keep me up top. I desperately need New Mexico to win tomorrow or I might be out of the running entirely. So far the plurality has been right every game and I seem to be the lone lobo pulling for the Lobos. Dirk and Marty have a lot riding on Oregon State so a victory there would bring me up considerably.

Dirk 94 (0)
Rodney 91 (0)
Kyle 79 (0)
Marty 73 (0)
Ronald 70 (0)
RAW 62 (2)
Bilbo 61 (0)
Willie 61 (0)
Fred 53 (53)
Stu 49 (4)
Carl 28 (60)
Maggie 27 (68)
Robbie 26 (22)
Terra 26 (64)
Roland 24 (33)
Annie 24 (38)
Craig 12 (45)
Kiefer 7 (21)

The number in parenthesis is over how much they've wagered total thus far and lost. The lower the better.

If I had more money, one of the things I would love to spend some cashola on would be satellite radio. I rarely listen to the radio anymore for a variety of reasons, mostly pertaining to what's on it. Or more accurately, what was on it two years ago when I stopped listening to it. A lot of people complain about the radio hit machine and how it all sounds the same and yada yada yada, but I find it interesting how few people are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

For my part, I still tour the Texas country music scene as well as some non-country acts that I run across (Blue October being the biggest) and I have a subscription to eMusic that I'll be terminating soon since they've changed their services into something I don't want anymore. I thought about subscribing to mp3.com's service. Yes, I know it's free, but some of their premium services were cool for my 14 day free trial period. Then they went under. I would still knock around IUMA, but their "radio" program cuts in an out somethin' awful.

So that leaves satellite radio. Of course, right now I don't even have a radio in my car, much less a high-falutin' sort. But someday I will have it. If they're still in business.

Just like we are the only nation to have lost the "U" in a lot of words, we also seem to be the only one that stubbornly refuses to give in to the metric system. In many ways it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but I like that we are still the only major holdout (that I know of). I like Canada and have friends that are Canadians, but it brings to light one of the differences between our outlook and theirs. Their government says "We're all going to start doing things this way" and they say "Okay, if it's for the best." They try that in the US and we're like "Why? The current system works!"

A friend of mine over fifty talks about how when she was a kid, she was told that in ten years no one would be using standard measurements anymore. If you want to know what happened to that push, Jenlars has some info.

Via Owen I found this speech by Howard Dean. Owen takes note of Dean distancing himself from the only Democratic President to win two consecutive terms since FDR, but I found the paragraphs preceeding it to be much more interesting:

Republicans claim to be helping average Americans with their tax cuts.

But let's look at the facts. The average wage earner did get a few hundred dollars back. But the refund didn't come for free.

President Bush never told you about the "Bush Tax". He never mentioned that over the next six years the typical American family will take on $52,000 more in its share of the national debt. That's a part of the "Bush Tax". But there's a lot more.

Take a look at your property taxes. They probably went up. In New Hampshire, property taxes went up an average of $270 per family last year. That's part of the "Bush Tax". Or look at your state budget. Is it in crisis? In most states, it is. That's part of the "Bush Tax", too.

Getting fewer services and paying more for things like state college tuitions or special education that's the consequence of the "Bush Tax".

The "Bush Tax" is huge many times greater than most people's refunds. And it'll be here for a long time to come. Just add the "Bush Tax" to all the other things the President never told us.

Whichever Dean speechwriter wrote that passage deserves a raise! The national debt is one of Bush's chief liabilities. Don't get me wrong, I believe Dean will make the situation worse and not better by adding more irreversable entitlements that his proposed tax hikesreversals won't compensate for, but the phrase "Bush Tax" should be repeated early and often if he wants to make headway on Bush and the economy (without praying for turmoil).

Early Sunday morning, I got off work and Hummer and I passed things off to the next shift, which consisted of only my roommate Danforth. Mr. Smith showed up unexpectedly at around 11. After watching Danforth fail to look sufficiently busy for about fifteen minutes, he confronted him. After threatening to write Danforth up, Dan instead told Mr. Smith that he was turning in his two-week notice and was immediately shown the door.

When Mr. Smith arrived on Monday morning, he asked if he could talk to me so I followed him in to his office.

"Did your roommate tell you that he quit?" he asked.

"No, sir," I lied. "I haven't talked to him."

"Well, he did yesterday. It was something he was apparently already planning to do. Were you aware of that?"

"No, sir," I lied.

"It's probably just as well. Danforth never fit in our corporate environment," he explained.

"How so?" I disingenuously asked.

"You know that attitude is important here, don't you?" he asked.

"Of course, it says so in section two, paragraphs six through nine and section four, by-line eighteen," I told him, making the numbers up out of thin air..

"Wow, you really know the employee handbook by heart," he complimented.

"Holy shit, you mean that's actually right?" I asked.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"Nothing. Continue. I look forward to hearing what you have to say next," I lied.

"Well, attitude is an important thing here at Gattaca Unlimited. We pride ourselves on our proud history and proud environment. We think keeping a postive mental attitude is a very important thing. Studies have shown that an upbeat workforce is a happy workforce. It's for this reason that we force all of our employees to be happy all of the time," he explained.

"I've noticed that. It's a very effective policy," I lied.

"Yes, well unfortunately Danforth is what we call a 'rotten apple.' He is one of those people that finds something negative to say about everything. The truth is that even if he hadn't been planning to quit we probably would have had to let him go. Some of our hidden microphones have overheard him saying negative things about the company!"

"Intolerable!" I replied, somehow managing to keep a straight face.

"I'm glad that you see things that way. We want our employees to have a positive view of our work environment. Do you have a positive view of your work environment?" he asked.

"Absolutely," I lied.

"I'm very glad to hear that. It truly bothers us when people don't buy in to our program here. Some people you just can't please, you know? You give them a good job for good money and all they do is come up with cheap nicknames," Mr. Smith explained. "We try to make people happy here. We force it down everyone's throats as best we can. But some people are just using us for the paycheck. They come, they harp, and then they leave us all alone, and they say mean things about us... mean things..." he explained as tears started falling down his eyes.

"Are you okay, sir?" I asked, pretending to care.

"I've been hurt before," he explained.

"I'm sorry, I had no idea," I lied.

"Anyway, whenever someone quits, if they have a spouse or really good friend they often quit as well. Do you intend to quit?" he asked.

"No, sir," I lied.

"Excellent. It's also sometimes our policy to let people go if they are too close to a former employee. Would you describe your relationship with your roommate as 'close'?" he asked.

"No, sir," I lied.

"Good, then I look forward to you spending a long and productive time here," he said.

"Me, too," I lied.

Their constant struggle continues as The Sandman and RAW fight The Battle Of The Graveyard Shift. To bring you up to date, The Sandman has taken advantage of RAW's third shift schedule to wreak havoc on our unsuspecting hero. The Sandman attacks at 4AM every morning, while RAW is bound by his enormously boring and uneventful job. RAW fights back with a notebook and paper where he can write down various ideas which can only spur his mind to be active.

The Sandman has gained the upper hand though by alluding RAW during the day. RAW tires as he chases the Sandman and his Z minions around all day, leaving him exhausted and vulnerable during the nightly sleepiness attacks.

But now RAW has a new weapon! A blindfold. By night it takes the shape of a sock, but during the day, when RAW spawns his plan to snatch the Sandman when he is at his friskiest, it is a mask that blocks out the light that has blinded RAW and allowed the Sandman to escape again and again.

So... without further ado, the battle continues...

w.bloggar is a great program for writing posts offline. It lets you do just about anything you could ask of it and it helped me port over a lot of old RAWbservations and NLJ posts over.

One thing it's not so good at is letting you know if you're closing a document without saving it.

I was talking to Anna the other day. We talked about a number of things including her family. Since her mother worked for Concord and I'd heard that Concord had been hemmorhaging, I asked how her job situation was (fine). I asked how her boyfriend's work was going (fine). I asked how her father was doing (fine, she's not a particularly descriptive person). I asked how her brother was doing and then followed up with a question about a girl that he dated.

Anna's brother Warren was a character. He was a jock and a partyer that never did particularly good in school. Given his charisma, I thought he'd make a great car salesman. Shortly before Anna and I broke up, he met a girl named Kara. Kara seemed to be the first person that he was serious about and it was after her that he stopped failing all his JuCo classes and started turning his college career around. She went off to Texas A&M and he followed her by going to nearby Blynn. His streak has apparently continued and he's now a student at the University of Houston on the cusp of getting a degree. That seemed unfathomable three years ago. Kara must deserve a lot of credit for that. A lot of people (including myself) say that you can't "change" a roguish boyfriend, but she apparently did.

Anna was always a great student. She made the "Who's Who In Texas High Schools" for a couple straight semesters based entirely on her academics. She won a scholarship to UH and joined the honors college. We started dating her first semester there. She never really made it in college. She ended up on academic probation after a couple of semesters and eventually transferred to UHD and then right after we broke up, she dropped out entirely.

It appears as though Warren is going to graduate from college and she's not. If Kara deserves a lot of credit for keeping Warren focused, what does that say about my credit (or more accurately blame) for Anna's college career? Did I change her?

The good news is that I'm still ahead. The bad news is that I got ten points riding on Boise State and if North Carolina State beats Kansas, Rodney's going to blow me out of the water!

RAW 52
Stu 49
Rodney 49
Marty 43
Dirk 43
Ronald 34
Kyle 34
Bilbo 33
Carl 28
Fred 27
Maggie 27
Terra 26
Roland 24
Annie 24
Willie 23
Craig 12
Kiefer 6
Robbie 2

Construction in progress.

A long time ago, my brother David was taken to the emergency room for one reason or another. While they were waiting, there was a very obviously drunk man who'd cut himself swaggering about. David turned to Mom and asked, "How come that man is acting so silly?"

Mom turned to David and replied, "He's had a little too much medicine."

---

This evening, I was watching the New York Jets game on television. During dead time, they were interviewing former New York Jet quarterback Joe Namath. Namath's voice was slow and, well, swaggering. I thought I might be imagining it until Dad asked, "Is he drunk?"

The more we watched and listened to his slow, slurring voice, the more convinced we became. Dad commented, "If I were them I'd switch away from this interview as quickly as possible."

They switched back to the studio pretty quickly and the broadcaster commented, "Joe is just a happy guy, isn't he?"

Update: I must admit that I wasn't watching the Namath interview too closely. I should have been. Apparently he told the interviewer that he wanted to kiss her. So Joe isn't just happy, he's amorous...

Update II: Here's a (low-grade) video and here's an audio. He says it twice, apparently. The second time very apparently. I must have been talking to Dad about how drunk he was the second time. He couldn't have said it any louder.

No-Lyfe Productions needs some hokey action movie lines. Ones that are instantly memorable (at least to those who have seen the movie only once). Some examples are "I'll be back," (Terminator), "Yippee Kayay Motherfucker" (Die Hard), and whatnot.

Anyone have any suggestions?

There is what I hope is a serious discussion on zero tolerance policies starting up on my post below. I've been thinking about it since my post and I have a few cents to add.

Mike comments that zero tolerance policies "can't help guarantee safety." That's very true as nothing can actually guarantee safety. But can zero tolerance policies make schools safer?

I think it's quite possible that they could. Especially when the alternative is discipline-by-parental-consent, which is to say no discipline at all. As my post mentioned, these policies did not sprout from thin air. They came from overly lenient policies that allowed little thugs and hudlums to run free. Principles, teachers, and parents (of the offenders) would consistently look at a situation and say "Little Thug has the potential to be a good guy. Punishing him may only make it worse."

It's this kind of attitude that seriously diminished my public school experience and particularly in my junior high years it was very prevalent. There seemed to be the reluctance to actually punish anyone for anything. Discipline unsurprisingly continued to decline and this lead to the zero tolerance movement.

I'd argue that there does have to be some sort of standard and deviation from that standard ought to be rare. Particularly when it comes to tangible things, such as the actual possession of the gun.

The problem with policies as they exist today is that they are far too broad in scope. A zero tolerance policy for the actual possession of an actual gun, for instance, would be a positive thing. A zero tolerance policy for the actual possession of an actually illegal-to-everyone drug would also be a positive thing.

The problem seems to occur most when it's something intangible, such as sexual harassment or threats, or things that is frequently useful (say, for instance, a prescription drug or a butter knife).

There's still the matter of some kid hawking ridalin to his classmates, but to clamp down on that leads precisely towards the sorts of things that we read about on a constant basis. Except that parents worry about these things and it's easier to pass more rules than to actually get involved.

The crux of it all is that I don't believe that these policies are actually intended to make the schools safer. The same people that just a few years ago let everyone off for everything are the same ones implementing these policies. The motivation for this seems to be part CYA and part appearences. The CYA explanation is pretty straight-forward: Parents couldn't bail their kids out if there was a policy that wouldn't let them. Take the discretion away from the administrators and you take the responsibility away as well.

I was reminded of the "appearences" angle when I was reading a column in the Outlook section of the Chronicle and the mayor of Sugar Land was talking about some gruesome murder or something that happened down there and the steps he's taking to make Sugar Land feel a safer place. He says that it's just as important that Sugar Landians "feel" safe than be safe. That's poppycock, yet it's effective. I suspect that the reason zero tolerance policies persist despite story after story of ridiculous punishments is that for all its faults, it makes parents feel their kids are safer. After all, with zero tolerance on a big sign with a strike through contraband in the O's says loud and clear that they're tough, tough, tough on discipline.

I suppose if you're a parent whose primary concern is sleeping well at night (instead of, you know, making sensible rules), that's sufficient.

Item #2 is, or was, my Aunt Elizabeth's house. [Read More!]

The inanity of the Houston Chronicle continues in this staff-ed about Texas A&M. The Chronicle's editorial staff has a talent about being wrong even when they fail to take a stand.

It starts by taking Texas A&M to task for its low enrollment rates. It then says that they're trying other things but ponders why it didn't try other things earlier. Oh, it also calls for a swift resolution.

Along the way it sings the praises of UT and Rice, both of which are instituting affirmative action plans. Then it points out that Texas A&M accepts minorities in greater numbers than minorities accept invitations. How will affirmative action help this, exactly? Should they let in a lot of unqualified minorities to make the qualified ones feel more welcome? Should they institute an affirmative action policy just to tell the ones that could get in without it "Hey, we want you to think you're only here because you're a minority and we want minorities"? If it's saying anything, that appears to be it... and that's the best argument against affirmative action around.

I've longed believed that schools needed to get tougher on discipline in high school (and particularly junior high).

This is not what I meant.

I got out of school before the Zero Tolerance policies got as bad as they are now. Stories like this were really just starting to creep out instead of being as common as they are today. There were instances back in the day, though. The brother of a friend of mine was sent off to the alternative school for having a baseball bat. It was in the trunk of his car (while looking for drugs they did not find), next to a ball, glove, and little league sports uniform.

Maybe I'm just a victim of Pauline Kael Syndrome, but I don't know anyone who really supports these inane policies.

Of course, what's the alternative? The reason these idiotic rules got instituted in the first place was because it seemed unfathomable to any parent that they might - just might! - be raising a little turd that needs to get in some trouble. I can't count the number of times parents have gotten their kids out of enormous trouble that they deserved to be in. Zero tolerance was the overreaction to misbehavior tolerance that came before it.

I really don't know what the solution is, but I do know that it doesn't involve expelling kids for taking a little pain reliever for monthly cramps.

Noted science fiction author Orson Scott Card, a self-proclaimed Democrat, has stirred the pot with his recent article in the Wall Street Journal in which he has a number of negative things to say about Democrats. The response from the left has not been particularly surprising and would be the same from the right if the shoe were on the other foot.

In a rhetorical trick, Card uses his affiliation with the Democratic Party to give his attacks on it more credibility. This has led to Jesse Taylor and Roy Edroso to proclaim that they are now Republicans so that their repeated attacks against Republicans ought to carry more weight.

Cute.

What I find more interesting about the subject of Card's latent party affiliation is the broader question of what someone with mixed views does when the issue or issues with which they are at odds with their party suddenly become more imperitive and what they do when they don't care for the leader, or leaders, of their party. Card provides a classic example of this.

Another example is Lex Alexander, whom I have a private joke about: "How do you know Lex is a Republican?" "Because he always says so right before he rips in to Republicans."

I don't view being a Republican or a conservatism as a loyalty test. In the case of the former, one can become more or less strongly Republican based on how often they vote the party line, but whether one is a Republican at all boils down to a few questions: Are you registered a Republican? Do you vote Republican? Do you agree with Republicans more often than Democrats to a significant degree?

My answer for both questions is yes. I was actually registered as a Republican before I became one so that I could vote in the 1998 Republican primaries. I generally vote Republican, though there are certain Republicans I can't bring myself to vote for (the House Majority Leader comes to mind) and other Democrats that I support for executive offices despite my ideological disagreements with them (such as John Sharp).

So does my vote for John Sharp prevent me from being a "true" Republican? Does Adrianne's support of Bill White prevent her from being such? Does Lex's hostility towards the current administration prevent him? Perhaps so, but that' defines political parties as a club as opposed to an ideological movement. Being a political party, of course, it is necessarily the former to a degree. However, political parties do not exist solely in a vacuum and are largey the conglomeration of various similarly minded people. Without this ideological core, a party cannot survive.

That makes it dangerous to take Lex, Adrianne, or myself and throw us out into the political wilderness because we don't embrace George W. Bush, Orlando Sanchez, or David Dewhurst (respectively). Political parties are built on emphasizing the common ground. This is especially true for those that meet the third criterion:

That said, it brings a poignant problem when someone feels so passionate about something or someone that their party affiliation is largely shadowed by it. If Lex didn't say that he was a Republican (or Card say that he was a Democrat), you'd never know it by reading their work. It would be easy to dismiss Lex and Card as party members "in name only" and to tell the former to just go join the Democrats and the latter to join the Republicans, but that's oversimplifying the issues.

Lex doesn't like Bush. He was also skeptical of the Second Gulf War and remains skeptical of Bush's domestic policy as it relates to civil liberties. So does that make him a Democrat? Even if he believes in lower taxes, less regulation, and personal freedom? What is someone in his position supposed to do?

Some of the more partisan Republicans might call him a Democrat or an independent. They might argue that he left the party. He, on the other hand, might turn around and argue that the party has left him.

Parties don't stay the same over the years. In 1998, it was the Democrats that took us to war and the Republicans that wanted us to stay home. In 1995, it was the Republicans dragging President Clinton towards a balanced budget with cuts he didn't want to make. Today it's the Republicans that are the hawks and the Democrats that crow on and on about the budget deficits. In the 90's the Republicans wanted to make immigration an issue and today they are courting the Hispanic vote.

Not only to the issues change, but more oftenly the emphasis does. Few Republicans agree with the GOP on every issue and few Dems agree with their party 100% of the time. So what happens when the one subject where you're on the outs with your party suddenly becomes very important. In my case, I am an advocate of legal marriage for gays. On this basis in a vacuum, Howard Dean is a very attractive presidential candidate. He's right on the issue and Bush is wrong. In 2000, Gore had a lot of better ideas in the area of space and technology than Bush.

Right now there are more important things. There is a war in Iraq and a domestic spending spree that Dean would want to take us on. I can't imagine myself voting for Dean in 2004. That said, under different circumstances and under a president that I felt as negatively towards as Lex does Bush, I might have a different view.

So based on a hypothetical match-up in a fictional world, does one's party affiliation cease? It would be hard to spearhead a Republicans for Dean movement because once you are pulling for someone like Dean, you're arguably not a Republican anymore at all. The same, to a degree, goes for Card and Bush.

Edroso and Taylor roll their eyes and state that one cannot be a Democrat and support Bush on the War on Terror and a handful of other issues. Yet Card is in favor of blanket gun confiscation. He's economically quite liberal from what I understand. In short, he wouldn't have a home in the Republican Party either. So could Card then just describe himself as an independent? Perhaps so, but I for one am tired of self-proclaimed moderates and independents who just happen to lean to one side or the other 75-90% of the time.

So what happens when the 10-25% encompasses all the issues of the day?

The University of Houston's records department used to be a nightmare. Simple things like getting a transcript or adding or dropping classes could be a nightmare. I had to get a transcript yesterday for Gattaca and I have to say that they've really cleaned things up. They're apparently finally moving from phone-in class sign-ups to the Internet. If their site can do half as much as it says it can, I'm impressed.

"Can money pay for half the days I lived awake but half asleep." - Primitive Radio Gods

The sleep deficit is approximatly 10 hours, or two nights of sleep. I've barely been hanging on to four hours of sleep a day. The only time I get tired is around 4am when I'm right in the middle of my shift at work. My second wind comes at 7:30 and I have to force myself to sleep at 9 or 10.

At one the sun shines through the window in my room and right on to my bed.

Waaaaaaaaaah!!!!

Sorry for the dearth of posts, but I haven't been entirely lucid these past couple of days. I was looking forward to getting some sleep this weekend, but I realized that I only get one day off and the only bed I have to sleep in where the sun doesn't come in at two has a skylight right over the bed.

Waaaaaaaaaah!!!

Have I ever mentioned that I get cranky when I miss sleep cumulatively?

Record Industry May Not Subpoena Providers

From the looks of it it was a good ruling. I doubt it'll have a long-term impact favorable to downloaders. Congress will probably get together and pass another law that specifically charges ISP providers liability to cooperate with the illegal behavior of its clients. In the meantime, though, I'll just consider it a victory that the judges stood up and took notice of what a law (any law!) actually said, instead of what they think it ought to have said.

Your political views are Moderate.
Your political party is most likely Independent or possibly Democrat.

I think Owen's right, this test needs to be recalibrated somewhat.

Since my last post got the attention of at least three old ACME people, I thought that I would provide a service for other former users. If you know the current wherebouts of anyone not on this list, please let me know and I'll add them immediately.

Andromina (current) - Graduated from University of Houston and is now teaching young little critters their ABCs. She is married to Papa Zito and they are expecting their first child soon.
Angel (2003) - Moved to Tennessee and training to be a hairdresser.
Aries (current) - Still living in Houston. He is an events promoter for parties, shows, and clubs.
Artemis (2001) - Went to Texas A&M where she was having "the time of [her] life"
Bugs [See Angel]
Bugsy (2002) - Still living in Houston doing computer technical support.
Chat Queen (current) - Graduated from the University of Texas in three years with very high marks. She's presently pursuing a Master's Degree in communications at Auburn University in Alabama.
Con (current) - Working as a locksmith in Austin.
Confederate Rebel [See Con]
Coyote (2003) - Working as an A/V expert for a small marketing company in the Clear Lake area. Married Molly, who is a youth pastor. No children.
Dark One (2001) - Died on April 21, 2000.
Dick Veritas (2001) - Went to Rice where he was studying philosophy. He's a big Crash Warship (Worship?) fan.
Granicus (current) - Graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in MIS. Presently living in Houston and engaged to be married some time next year.
Gypsy (current) - Went to Stephen F. Austin with Kildare where they ended up breaking things off. She transferred to the University of Houston Downtown where she recently graduated. She's working for an energy company and plans to leave Texas soon with her boyfriend.
Hourglass (current) - Went to New England for a while but is presently living in San Marcos with intentions to return to Houston soon. He is aiming to become a cabana boy in South America in the near future.
Horde (current) - Working in the IT field in Houston.
Kavey (current) - Married in 1998 and divorced in 2000. Presently living with Pink Velvet and working as a solo technician for an architecture firm.
Kildare (2002) - Went to Stephen F. Austin with Gypsy where they ended up breaking things off. He's now serving in the military.
Linus (current) - Graduated from Case Western Reserve University with a degree in geology. He returned to Houston briefly but is now living with his girlfriend in Wyoming doing something geology-related.
Nemesis [See Aries]
Outsider (current) - Beleaguered student at Baylor University. He is presently the drummer of a band called The Drinks.
Papa Zito (current) - Taking classes at the University of Houston Downtown and working in the IT field. He married Andromina and they are expecting their first child soon.
Pariah (current) - Working in the IT field in Houston. He and Pink Velvet broke up in 2001, though he's currently involved with a medical resident in the northwest, where he plans to move early next year.
Pepsi (2003) - Student at the University of Texas. Lived with Chat Queen and Rebel Cool for a while. Current wherebouts unknown.
Phoenix [See Papa Zito]
Pink Velvet (current) - Crosses the country selling software systems to veterinary clinics. She attended the University of Houston briefly before taking jobs as an animal trainer and eventually landing her present position. She and Pariah broke up in 2001. She's presently living with Kavey in a committed relationship.
Rebel Cool (2002) - Student at the University of Texas. Lived with Pepsi and Chat Queen for a while. Current wherebouts unknown.
Sagitaur (2001) - Currently a student in Phoenix, Arizona with plans to move back when he graduates. He is in a committed relationship with Tili.
Scarlet (2003) - Went to the University of Texas. Presently living in the Houston area and in a committed relationship.
Spam (current) - Student at Texas State University studying computer science. Due to graduate next May and plans to go to Japan some time afterwards.
Taco (current) - Graduated from Clearview High School and is looking for IT work in the Houston area.
Tili (2001) - Went to school in Phoenix for a while before returning to Texas. She's in a committed relationship with Sagitaur.
Toonces (current) - Graduated from Texas A&M University. She works for a large petroleum company originally in Lafayette but now on the outskirts of Houston.
Wylie (2001) - Student at the University of Houston and in a committed relationship.

In College Football News, Matthew Zemek delivers the best argument against the BCS that I have run across to date. Except for the occasional Turkey Day trip to Austin or College Station, I didn't really follow college football before the BCS was implemented, but Zemek's argument for the old system over the new resonated with me.

Here's also an ESPN article on, among other things, Larry Coker's defense of the current system and of bowls in general:

I don't really want to see a 16-team playoff,'' Coker said. "If you have 117 teams, you have 116 losers. When I was with Jimmy (Johnson) at Oklahoma State, we were a good football team. We weren't a great football team. We lost to Nebraska, we lost to Oklahoma and lost late to Missouri. We're going to be in no national championship playoff at all, but we got invited to the Bluebonnet Bowl. It's not even a bowl anymore.

"We go and there's 55,000 people, crowded, packed and we win the game. It's like we won a national championship. Our fans were elated, Jimmy's a great coach and now gets this opportunity at the University of Miami. Assistant coaches get rehired. But if you have one winner, then there are a lot of losers out there. From a coaching standpoint, I like to see a lot of coaches have an opportunity to win and their programs have an opportunity to win.''

I still have a post coming up on college football playoffs and so forth, but Zemek's argument in favor of split national championships when appropriate is actually a conclusion that I was already starting to come to. Part of my appreciation for college football eminates from its chaotic nature. It's one of the reasons that I am not in favor of a structured playoff system. The more structured it becomes, the less winners there are and the more it becomes like a junior league NFL (and if I want to watch the NFL, I'll watch the NFL).

I suppose I'm an unusual fan that way. Or maybe it's because my favored team (UH) would not likely be included in a playoff system but gets to go to Hawaii this year.

An interesting line from the ESPN article:

[OU coach Bob] Stoops said the teams that play for the national title should at least have won a conference championship.

[Links from Coogfans]

Adrianne has a good post on swastikas that I'd been meaning to comment on.

When we were in high school, Jay created a character named Smooth Steel. His logo was two perpendicular squared S's... a swastika, basically. The character wasn't a Nazi or snything, it was just a good logo with two S's.

Our friend Chip objected vigorously to the costume. We pointed out that the swastika as we know it predates Germany and the Nazi party. Chip originally denied this and when confronted with evidence, argued that it didn't matter. We internally redrew his origins to have an Native American past so that we could incorporate the logo.

In retrospect, Chip was probably right in that there are some things you can't dress around and the swastika, a symbol of one of the most hated regimes in world history, is probably one of them.

Which brings to light the question of those that, unlike Jay and I, actually have a claim to the symbol. Should they avoid using it because of the negative imagery it evokes?

It's hard for this white boy from Texas to say much either way, but I am generally in favor of removing offensive imagery even if the offensiveness of it is a misinterpretation. Sports logos involving Native Americans come to mind except that the actual rank-and-file don't seem to object to them very much. Another example would be the Confederate flag, which I would support removing from state flags and look down on those that put one on their bumper.

What is your opinion on the relevence of dreams? Do you believe that they are significant or do you think it's all a bunch of blather?

I've been having some weird dreams lately that, if relevent, are somewhat disturbing. I can think of at least once instance where a very powerful dream forced me to confront something that I'd been trying to avoid. Other than that, I can't think of any offhand that have proven super-relevent.

Does anyone know a good place in Houston that has a very wide selection of candy? I'm looking for a difficult-to-find Reese's product and haven't the faintest idea where to look.

Most everyone is familiar with the practice of padding a resume. A large number of people do it, and though I never have I have been tempted to on more than one occasion (particularly since I have an unverifiable padding available to me).

When I go to Idaho, I fear that I will have the opposite problem: My resume will be too good.

For the kinds of jobs I'm seeking, anyway. While unemployed, I applied for a number of jobs that I was very overqualified for and I think that was one of the reasons none of them called me back. The jobs I'm going to be pursuing up there will probably be a little lower on the rung than even my current one and I'm afraid that my college degree will make them fear that I'm going to quit as soon as I find a better job. It's actually untrue as I'm a loyal employer to a fault. While at Nova and UFC I turned down better job offers believing (erroneously) that my loyalty would be rewarded.

So the question is whether or not it's ethical to leave (positive) things out of my resume such as my college degree so that certain employers (gas stations if I get desperate enough) won't be off-put by it.

Your thoughts?

Cox Cable apparently wants to add ESPN to its premium services. ESPN is, of course, owned by ABC. The last time ABC got into an argument with a cable company, they won big time. My folks had been loyal (if disgruntled) cable customers until that flap and they've been on satellite ever since.

If Cox thinks that screwing around with football fans is going to bring them more money, I think they're pretty sorely mistaken. I'm willing to bet that a substantial portion of cable subscribers subscribe only for sports, which satellite does a superior job of delivering anyhow with a lot more options. The difference will become more stark when satellite gets around to games on demand, which I hear is in the works.

Memphis 27, North Texas 17

I'm off to an early lead!

RAW 25
Stu 21
Rodney 21
Bilbo 16
Marty 15
Dirk 16
Craig 12
Kyle 9
Willie 9
Ronald 7

Annie 0
Carl 0
Fred 0
Kiefer 0
Maggie 0
Robbie 0
Roland 0
Terra 0

Thursday I'm riding on Miami of Ohio.

Note: When and if I start falling behind, I'll probably stop posting updates on this...

A deacon in Memphis named D P Dwiggins is formulating a ranking system for college football.

It's split in to two catego