Question Of The Day

Who are bigger crooks, doctors or automobile mechanics?

Why?

I saw this guy walking down the street. He was listening to an iPod. He had a big grin on his face. I punched him square in the jaw. He dropped to his knees. He looked up and asked "Why?"

I replied: "I wanted to see if I could knock that stupid look off your face. I succeeded."

If You Are Not Doing Anything, Then You Are Not Doing Anything

When I came to graduate school I met some obsessive people, people who could not have fun but studied all of the time, people who could have fun but could not study.

I also met people who could balance life pretty well. These are the people I wanted to be.

But here is the conundrum. The people who could balance did not accomplish anything. They were saner than the obsessives, but who really gives a damn about being sane?

I am obsessive. I have to try and balance, but before I can reach happiness, I have to respect myself. I have to embrace my obsessiveness. I have to accept my ambition while recognizing my shortcomings.

Instead of sitting around doing nothing looking for magical elixirs to cure my Blues, I have to do what I want when I want.

Now I just have to figure out what I want.

A Different Perspective

Trying to help your friends and family can be stupid, but we all do stupid things when it comes to friends and family.

This Made Me Laugh

Lyrics: Brad Paisley - Online lyrics



I work down at the Pizza Pit
And I drive an old Hyundai
I still live with my mom and dad
I'm 5 foot 3 and overweight
I'm a scifi fanatic
A mild asthmatic
And I've never been to second base
But there's whole 'nother me
That you need to see
Go checkout MySpace

'Cause online I'm out in Hollywood
I'm 6 foot 5 and I look damn good
I drive a Maserati
I'm a black-belt in karate
And I love a good glass of wine
It turns girls on that I'm mysterious
I tell them I don't want nothing serious
'Cause even on a slow day
I could have a three way
Chat with two women at one time
I'm so much cooler online
So much cooler online

When I get home I kiss my mom
And she fixes me a snack
And I head down to my basement bedroom
And fire up my Mac
In real life the only time I've ever even been to L.A
Is when I got the chance with the marching band
To play tuba in the Rose Parade

[ Online lyrics found on http://www.completealbumlyrics.com ]
Online I live in Malibu
I pose for Calvin Klein, I've been in GQ
I'm single and I'm rich
And I've got a set of six pack abs that would blow your mind
It turns girls on that I'm mysterious
I tell them I don't want nothing serious
'Cause even on a slow day
I could have a three way
Chat with two women at one time
I'm so much cooler online
So much cooler online

When you got my kind of stats
It's hard to get a date
Let alone a real girlfriend
But I grow another foot and I lose a bunch of weight
Every time I login

Online
I'm out in Hollywood
I'm 6 foot 5 and I look damn good
Even on a slow day
I could have a three way
Chat with two women at one time
I'm so much cooler online
Yeah, I'm cooler online
I'm so much cooler online
Yeah, I'm cooler online

Yeah, I'm cooler online

Yeah, I'll see ya online



We are all looking for some type of escape.

What Do Government Bureaucrats Really Want?

The power over life and death.

But government will run a successful health care system.

If you want a job done right, do it yourself. Do not ask for handouts. Do not ask for collective action. Do it yourself.

The Thing I Like About Wal-Mart

I never worry if I am paying too much in Wal-Mart. I have been shopping at Kroger which has better meat and sometimes better produce. On all non-sale items they are 25-50% higher.

This morning I went to this vegetarian restaurant. It has a whole wall dedicated to stopping Wal-Mart from coming to "our" community. It made me sick. The service was not bad. But it took me ten minutes to pay. I paid with a credit card, and the cashier left before the receipt was printed. I could see the receipt right there, but no one stopped to let me sign. So I stepped around the register, tore it off, and signed. My tip reflected my waiting.

Maybe I was not that far off in this post.

A Little

If I go someplace else, someplace with a little coffee, someplace a little cooler, someplace with a little more light, someplace with a little less distractions, someplace with a little more life, I will be better.

What Have We Learned?

"The greatest guilt today is that of people who accept collectivism by moral default; the people who seek protection from the necessity of taking a stand, by refusing to admit to themselves the nature of what they are accepting; the people who support plans specifically designed to achieve serfdom, but hide behind the empty assertion that they are lovers of freedom, with no concrete meaning attached to the word; the people who believe the content of ideas need not be examined, that principles need not be defined, and that facts can be eliminated by keeping one's eyes shut. They expect, when they find themselves in a world of bloody ruins and concentration camps, to escape moral responsibility by wailing: "But I didn't mean this.""

From Ayn Rand's foreword to Anthem in 1946

Three Steps To Approach A Probem From Some Wise Old Man Whose Name I Forget

1. Visualize.
Fix your focus. Define your objectives.

2. Agonize.
Find the facts. Clearly define your problem.

3. Organize.
Form a team or support group. Face your demons and conquer them. Finish the job.


He also said, "Teaching should be instructional, practical, and motivational."

He was certainly a wise man.

Now it is time for me to fix my focus.

Promises I Have Made To Myself

1. When Peter Frampton comes on the radio, I change the station and never come back.

2. I never eat buffalo wings around neat people who like to make fun of fat people. I might end up on death row.

3. I always use the same types of weights while lifting. I always put my weights back.

4. I do not take myself too seriously.

5. I will never go to another 4th of July celebration where they hire a Beatles tribute band.

6. I will never listen to another Beatles tribute band.

7. I stand at attention during the national anthem.

8. I will not get drunk to make a band sound good.

9. I will not get drunk to make a chick look good.

Einstein Quote Of The Day

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."

Disappointment

Somebody does something. I get angry. I realize "it doesn't matter." But right now it does.

I spit. It hits the ground. I say "it is over with."

Two Quotes From Bukowski's Ham On Rye

"I walked around the library looking for books. I pulled them off the shelves one by one. But they were all tricks. They were very dull. There were pages and pages of words that didn't say anything. Of if they did say something they took too long to say it and by the time they said it you already were too tired to have it matter at all."

"His mother made him stick his nose into a book right away and she made him keep it there. She made him read all of his school books over and over, page after page. "He must pass his exams," she told me. It never occurred to her that maybe the books were wrong. Or maybe it didn't matter."

What do these quotes remind you of?

There Is No Such Thing As Fiscally Responsible Public Investments

1. Golf courses do not pay, especially when politicians use the National Golf Foundation as their main reason to build a course.

2. From this report:

"Baseball does not boost the local economy. Andrew Zimbalist, a leading sports economist, wrote earlier this year: “There are very few fields of economic research that produce unanimous agreement. Yet every independent economic analysis of the impact of stadiums has found no predictable positive effect on output or employment. Some studies have even concluded that there is a possible negative impact.” This perhaps surprising finding largely reflects the fact that families and individuals who spend money to attend a baseball game spend less on other forms of entertainment than they would in the absence of a stadium."

Three Books I Bought Last Night

1. The South Beach Diet: The Delicious, Doctor-Designed, Foolproof Plan for Fast and Healthy Weight Loss by Arthur Agatston, M.D. A doctor told me to try, so I am going to try it.

2. Anthem by Ayn Rand It is that time of year.

3. Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski I cannot wait to read this one. I read his Post Office in two days.

Some Things About Myself

1. I am fat. My lack of fitness has started to affect my health. My legs retained fluid the other day. Every time I get a cold I also get a respiratory infection. It is time for a change.

2. I am lazy. I cannot concentrate. I can blame boredom and other bullshit all I want, but it is me. It is all me.

3. I have a nose hair longer than any hair on my head. I must trim it.

4. I am too nice of a guy. I let people whose only concern is their well-being to influence my life. I cannot let others' schedules override mine.


I am going to the gym. When I come back, I am going to be a changed man.

A Quote From Charles Bukowski Through Jeff

"You begin saving the world by saving one person at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics."

Advice For Teaching

I am trying to digitize some of my written notes. I am too lazy to just type them up and save them, so I am going to put some here at the old blog.

The following is advice distinguished professors gave to TAs at a seminar.

1. Have a stage presence. Teaching is a performance.

2. Be prepared.

3. You syllabus should be a legally binding contract between you and the student. It should be a constitution. It might not be fair, but all students should be equal before the syllabus.

4. Know peoples' names.

5. Details are important.

6. Look nice and professional.

7. Be careful.

8. Always leave your personal problems at the classroom door, and do not take anything a student says or does personally.

9. Talk about what you know every opportunity you get. If you are doing research on a relevant topic, talk to the students about it. Teaching equals research and vice versa.

10. Never say anything important in the last five minutes of class.

11. Define what it takes to get a certain grade.

12. If it is important, say it at least three times.

13. Tear down the wall that separates most professors and students. They have to know you are a real person. Disarm your students unless you want to be fired at. (I know this is a bad analogy given the tragedy.)

14. Work with your best and worst students. The middle students take care of themselves.

15. Talk to colleagues.

16. Do not try to control students. If you do, you will fail.

17. Learn how to manage your time.

18. Many students do not know how to learn. It is part of your job to try and teach them how to learn. You cannot do this unless you know how to learn.

19. Sometimes you just have to survive.

20. The day before a class always have something "solid" in front of you.

21. Make your material relevant.

22. Be helpful.

23. Know yourself. Know your strengths and weaknesses.

24. Make people stand.

25. If you have a talkative class, pick a fictitious person in the back to yell at.

26. Be organized.

27. It has to matter to you. Be passionate.

28. Understand your own insignificance. A bad class does not ruin a semester. A bad semester does not ruin a career. Do the best you can and do not worry about the rest.

A Question

A comment from this predictable pious ESPN.com article:

"ihamos (6/28/2007 at 9:41 AM)
Let me come at this from a different, albeit unpopular angle. Why does it matter? Yes NFL players are subject to the same laws of this country as we are, but I mean as far as the NFL and suspensions go. Salaries in general, be it the $40K that a normal guy makes or the $5m made by a player are calculated based on the amount of money that person produces for the company they work for, relative to the reasonable life of the job and the scarcity of the skill needed to do it. NFL players aren't payed so much because they're famous or they're athletes, they are payed so much because less that 2,000 people can do what they do and on average they each do it for less that 4 seasons. THIS IS A JOB. Short of breaking the law, for which punishment is decided by the courts, why do they have to be role models? They don't choose to be role models, we choose to make them. These are guys trying to make a living to feed their families, just as we do for $40K over 50 years. They're job is to entertain us at the highest level possible for 4 years each, not to raise our kids for us. The fact that we are outraged at the idea of a criminal being a player is a commentary on the state of parenting in this country. We feel the need to blame other people when we should be the ones teaching our kids right and wrong. To expect all these players to be "role models" is unfair to them. I'm not condoning what these guys (Tank, Pac, Henry) do, fundamentally they are taking away years of their playing career if nothing else, but I'm saying that we need to stop expecting so mcuh from 22 year olds who get paid millions to play a game. Role models are the guy who works for 50 years at minimum wage, not athletes. It's high time we realized that."

We get to choose our role models. We get to choose what we watch on Sunday. If we choose to watch and glorify idiots, then that is our problem, not the idiots' problem.