10.31.2006

Please Don't Drag Me Down

argh, i hate transcribing. i have over an hour and a half. i've spent 45 minutes and have only finished a little over 16 minutes. you do the math. because my brain hurts too much.

i have a feeling my posting is going to continue to lag as i enter the job/internship scramble as well as the end of the semester, which is frighteningly close already. i don't have any time to develop senioritis, it's all going by so fast.

i suppose i have to say something about the football game this past weekend. we had been tempting fate for quite a while, so it came as only a small surprise when we lost. i expected it against oregon or cal. hopefully it will be a bit of a wakeup call.

meanwhile, the waterpolo team continues its incredible tear through the pac 10 and elsewhere. a win over uc irvine on saturday made it 37 in a row. of course, it's never a big topic of conversation on campus, or on the sports page of the daily trojan.

10.25.2006

Short and Sour

i'm slowly and quietly running out of things to say. i'll be in fresno this weekend. hoo-rah. give me a call if you are in the 'no.

10.24.2006

Shut Mouth, Open Mind

somewhere, deep in the murky recesses of my mind, lurks a great fear. a fear of my obligations. a fear of the magazine story yet to be reported and written. a fear of the investigation into disabled accessibility on campus yet to be investigated and compiled. a fear of the internship application sitting untouched on the desktop. a fear of the journalism job fair on thursday, where rows upon rows of confident recruiters wait to weed through the latest crop. a fear of commitment, responsibility, adulthood, maturity, growth, change. i'm scared shitless and wouldn't have it any other way.

saw ralph nader speak for 45 minutes before i had to race off to my investigative reporting class this evening. great stuff about not wasting our twenties (age, not money, but both seem relevant to his discussion). highlights:

-we are a generation of screen-watchers. televisions, cellphones, palm pilots, mp3 players. (computers...a screen you are watching right now.) it's all passive.

-we tend to cling to the same words and repeat them over and over again. like, like, like, like, like. vocabularies are shrinking with every generation.

-an ancient chinese proverb: to know and not to act is not to know. do something now or we will become spectators in the decline of the world. and the world is declining.

10.22.2006

Golden the Pony Boy

yesterday: breakfast with mom, triple-overtime-sudden-death-winning-goal waterpolo game against ucla, lunch with mom and stefi, swimming in tuscany pool which may or may not be allowed yet, dinner at toi on sunset, brief game of chandelier at magnolia, brief visit to toga party sans toga, science of sleep at flagship, sleepover. today: more sleep, guitar, wee bit o' homework, muckin' about.

i can't understand you guys when you talk to me in two different languages. i feel schizometric...schizo...

10.16.2006

Grip

things are still rolling along here. feeling that creepy creepy dread of next summer already, when i'll have to stop screwing around and get a real job. i don't want to harp on it too long, but aaaaahhhhh! okay. done with that. i feel like a million things are happening all at once for some reason and i can't seem to get a good grasp on any of them. i've got a three-finger, death-clench, hanging-on-for-dear-life kinda thing going on. any advice?

Sentimental Central

i just realized this blog has been alive for nearly a year now. of course, my first post was on october 30th, so i have 14 days before i can officially celebrate. but we've have some good times, you and i, haven't we? we've laughed, we've cried, we've sung kumbaya around a glowing campfire. okay, so maybe not that last one. but i was singing it in my head every time i sent another random thought zipping out across the blogosphere. thanks are in order for all those who stood by me, through the terrible blogger crash of february '06 and the internet-less days of the summer. i couldn't - gasp - have done it - choke - without you.

Good Vibrations

doing good has never been so easy. click the orange button and feed the hungry!

also, do good by doing well. subscribe to
good!

10.15.2006

Specific Details

i feel like these general sort of updates on my life are rather boring. they seem that way to me anyway. so i'm going to put a very specific something in this post. i haven't figured out what it will be yet. maybe the fact that i had rice and beans, microwaved in a bowl and sprinkled with salt, pepper and cayenne, for dinner. no, that's quite mundane. even less interesting than my usual blathering. maybe my conquest over one of nigel tufnel's spinal tap riffs. no, that would just be me trying to brag about my guitar playing as a ploy for appreciation and acceptance. aha. i saw two guys at the track today, throwing a football back and forth. i was performing a moderate calisthenics workout on the artificial turf, well within earshot of the pair. one had muscular arms and a sure throw. he constantly berated the other fellow for dropping the ball or lobbing a poor, wobbly pass back. i was quite entertained, despite some mild, nagging feelings of sympathy for the lesser-skilled of the aforementioned pair.

10.14.2006

One TD Wins

another close one. not quite as bad as the last few weeks. still, could use a little explosive offense. and apparently my roommate and i were in a crowd-shot on abc, so that is cool, i guess. now i need to hunt down some food before i pass out.

10.13.2006

Mild Case of Elleus

guinness draught, drizzly rain and sun, barbeque, cool breeze. perfec'. bit of a busy weekend ahead. football game tomorrow, of course. maybe a little of the socal waterpolo tournament. women's soccer vs. ucla on sunday. magazine rewrite. investigative story pitches. figuring out what to do with life.

i need to get some harp's. i totally forgot about my plan to make black and tans. major disappointment. back to ralph's, i think. leave me some love.

10.11.2006

Hearts and Minds

from here:

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

mission accomplished?

Quickie

the world seems to be spinning on its axis rather well lately. a good vision for my magazine piece re-write, an aced guitar midterm, a few good investigative story ideas, and a great idea for my next magazine piece. seethe with jealousy. go ahead. now if i could just get some sleep...

10.09.2006

Laws Rule

my investigative reporting assigment: go to a restaurant of my choice and ask to see the latest health inspection report. take notes and write up a one-page memo. my restaurant of choice: panda express on figueroa. i entered the establishment and proceeded to the cashier. i would like to see your latest public health inspection report please, i said to the woman behind the counter. oh, um. we don't have any, she replied. you don't have your public health inspection report? is there a manager i can talk with? i asked back. hold on, she said. another woman approached me. what do you need? she asked. i'd like to look at your latest public health inspection report, i said. we don't let people see that, she said. well, by law you are obligated to present it upon request, i returned. i've worked here for five years and we've never done anything like that. i've never heard of that, she said. look, i'm not trying to get you in trouble. i simply want to examine your health inspection report, a right i am afforded by law, i said. well, you can call the corporate office and talk to them about it, she shot back. all i need to do is look at it for five minutes. i'll look at it and give it right back. no one will even know you gave it to me, i replied. sigh. hold on. and she retrieved it for me. ha. i win. my powers of persuasion grow with every passing day.

10.08.2006

The Rundown

ah, it's been a busy few days. not really, but it makes me feel better to say that, since i haven't posted much around here for a while. i could recap. do you want that? i'll do it really fast:

last advisement of my college career on thursday. saw first quarter of waterpolo game vs. santa barbara friday afternoon. went to see the departed friday evening (good, see it if you can). went to run lola run at midnight friday. stayed up all night. went to football game vs. washington at 10 saturday. almost had heart attack. stayed up until 11:30 for no apparent reason. slept until 12:30 today. swam and lifted weights. purchased groceries at ralph's. made tortilla chips. ate them. watched seinfeld. did magazine non-fiction homework assignment. started writing this post. finished writing this post and posted it.

Goin' Down, Down

from here:

For the first time since 2001, the NEWSWEEK poll shows that more Americans trust the Democrats than the GOP on moral values and the war on terror. Fully 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win control of Congress next month, including 10 percent of Republicans, compared to just 35 percent who want the GOP to retain power. If the election were held today, 51 percent of likely voters would vote for the Democrat in their district versus 39 percent who would vote for the Republican. And while the race is closer among male voters (46 percent for the Democrats vs. 42 percent for the Republicans), the Democrats lead among women voters 56 to 34 percent.

'bout freakin' time. and just in time. save us this november, fellow americans.

10.04.2006

Too Lazy to Think of Good Title

hrrm. been a long day and it's only 2:15. i was really dragging this morning, due to minimal sleep, but i managed to drag myself into the pool and that sort of gave me a jump start somehow. now i'm just trying to last until 5. then i'm going home, throwing together some burritos or something and collapsing on the couch. and maybe drinking lots of coffee.

i've got a possible idea for my investigative reporting piece. cops handing out tickets to students riding their bikes at night without lights. they've never done it before. there is no way they can possibly catch everyone. who are they stopping? why are they stopping them? was this an order from higher up? trying to get more tickets issued? they did this last year with riding bikes against traffic up jefferson. lasted a few weeks and stopped. aren't there more important things they should be focusing on?

dependable renegade has had some great stuff up lately about exfoleyation, or pervgate as i like to call it. check it out. link on the right --->

brewing up something tasty for skp. if i have the willpower, i may get it up tonight (no pun intended, sickos).

10.02.2006

As A Bee

ah, well, i had a great weekend. tom petty concert in berkeley. excellent. saturday in santa barbara. excellent. sunday evening wandering and the squid and the whale. excellent. and now it's back to the grind. work and schoolwork. 1,000 words due tomorrow. hour-long conversation to transcribe. guitar to play. books to read. sleep to catch up on. shape to get back into. piles of laundry to wash. rice burritos to make and eat. busy.