Wow. I’m an idiot. The reason my tweets were showing up as posts is because I enabled the option to import the feed — when, in fact, the only option I needed to enable was the one to post the tweets on the side. If all that sounds convoluted and a bit of a snoozefest, it’s because I explained it wrong, and anyway, all you need to know is that I consider myself such a moron that the only title I deserved to give this entry is some hasty line from a prescription drug commercial.
Yet the tweeting adventures continue. I’ve only been at this for a couple of days, but I’m already absurdly hooked, especially during the Tumblr outage. Absurd — did I already mention that? Check this out:
Which, with scary quickness, resulted in this:
And led to this:
None of which has anything to do with this:
Because the first thing I thought of when I saw it was the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Also, what is Katie Couric wearing? I know it’s three days until Christmas, but there’s a fine line between looking festive and looking like a human ribbon.
Do you cook? I don’t cook — not well, anyway. Some would say that I don’t cook at all, even though I have what I call my specialties: “Filipino” spaghetti, which is regular spaghetti, except sweetened and with hot dogs; and meatloaf, the recipe of which is a combination learned from my mom first and, later, one of my roommates. Tonight, I decided to cook meatloaf. By the way, the Safeway down by The Ballpark has ground beef on sale if you buy the huge packs. I got a lot of meat for 13 bucks when two of the regularly-sized packages would have cost about 15 or so. But you don’t have to pay attention to that kind of stuff, do you? I’m not asking meanly. Just wondering. I think that if I ever ended up earning the kind of salary you do, I’d still pay attention to stuff like the price of meat, and whether or not I’m getting a good deal. Just because one is comfortable with money doesn’t mean that one has to be frivolous with it.
While I was cooking the meatloaf, I had ABC World News Tonight With Diane Sawyer in the background. I only watch the national evening news broadcasts on the east coast because, over here, they come on too early for me. And even when I do watch the national news, I prefer Katie Couric on CBS. In the house where I live right now, we don’t get very strong digital reception. (We don’t have cable.) Channel 7, the ABC affiliate, is the only channel we receive clearly.
I was disappointed by tonight’s ABC News because there was no update about what was happening in Wisconsin. There was significant air time devoted to what’s happening in the Arab world and, of course, this is important news to report. But there’s also revolution happening right here on home soil, and I can’t help but feel like tonight’s broadcast missed an important opportunity to keep the American audience updated about that. I had to go right to ABC’s website to find out that the anti-union bill was (not shockingly) approved by the Wisconsin Assembly (though the actual passage of the bill will continue to be fought). Instead, tonight’s broadcast included a piece about a major teachers union that wants to change the rules of tenure, which is a huge issue with teacher retainment. It’s hard to fire teachers who’ve been around a long time.
My problem with this broadcast was that I felt like teachers were once again cast in a bad light. Even Diane Sawyer’s introductory monologue had a beseeching tone that to me sounded vaguely accusatory against public school teachers and their public sector brethren. Or am I just projecting my own frustration? Well, maybe. But I’m still disappointed. I feel overwhelmed by the realization that our great nation outright disrespects a profession that ought to be revered. Based on our politics and economics, we love tycoons as much as we hate them, and unfortunately it seems to me that tycoons are more revered than teachers. Based on word of mouth alone, you’d think that the failure of American education is entirely because of “bad teachers”. Nevermind culture, nevermind economy. What a shame that the concept of mitigating circumstances is only ever employed to get someone out of jail. Tycoons and crooks over teachers. Is this really our country today?
I’m not a parent, Linc. I’m in no position to have kids right now. And not being a parent means that I’ve never gone through the frustration of having my own kid receive mediocre education. So, that’s not for me to judge. At the same time, I have friends who are public school teachers, and they are good people — and the majority of my own public school teachers were amazing. Sure, there were maybe two or three bad apples, but even they are statistically irrelevant against the backdrop of my successful 12-year (plus kindergarden) public education background. I’m proud that my life from K-12 wasn’t in private school, that my parents didn’t have to needlessly dish out thousands of extra bucks, and that we were ultimately able to count on our state for good, perhaps even great, schooling.
I’m also in a position now where I don’t quite yet know if I would put my own kids in public schools. I might have lucked out with my public education. But I don’t regret it, and I have never hated teachers as much as everyone seems to these days.
The concept of Mother’s Day is all about the role of women shaping individuals and therefore society and the world. Here are two of my favorite influential women having a nice chat with one another.
Been home since about 6. Just been bumming around. Kind f beat from all the hiding that I did, all the management I was doing of my personal shit. Church was okay. I got what I needed, though maybe not what I wanted. Which is just as well, because in the midst of all the shit running through my head, believe it or not, I’m actually starting to see the difference between what I need and what I want.
So, I made some dinner, went online and caught up on the news — why do I even bother? that shit is so fucking depressing, natural disasters and folks bickering at each other — and then, of course, I turned on the game.
Which I momentarily relegated to the background because I went to the CBS News website to start Katie Couric’s final broadcast as anchor of the evening news. I didn’t even realize her last night was tonight until I read about it over on Yahoo. Speaking of Yahoo, check out this article about some new claim that the whole Area 51 thing wasn’t aliens, but some big Soviet plan. I guess we can add that to the neverending list of conspiracy theories about Area 51, but what I found more interesting unsettling was this little ditty:
Still, lack of proof hasn’t exactly stopped the book from sparking speculation on the media circuit and on the Web. In the last day, Yahoo! searches skyrocketed 3,000 percent for “area 51 book.”
Look, I know Google is becoming evil, but it is still a major search engine. There’s also Bing, of course. Why did the article cite only Yahoo! searches? Does it have anything to do with the fact that the article appears as part of the so-called “The Upshot: A Y! News Blog” (bold emphasis mine)? This just makes me think of those college rankings that everyone is always so gung-ho about. Hey, I was, too. But I’ve always wondered about the veracity of all that data. You never know who paid whom to get ranked and cloaked it under some fancy euphemistic excuse like, “Oh, we’re just using the data in exchange for ranking.” Right, you mean you had to buy the data and then you’d get ranked.
On my way to church today, I got kind of annoyed by those street canvassers who are out there with their binders raising money for some good cause. I used to have that job, you know. Back in 2004, I was a canvasser raising money for the DNC. I’m not sure how involved the DNC actually was with our fundraising efforts and how much of the money that folks donated went to, like, just our office. The canvassers today, in particular, were hawking some children’s charity. One of them called out some women pushing strollers and went, “Hey, I like kids, too!”
Blatant.
I know that they’re raising money for a basically good cause, and that they’re doing that sort of thing because, like everyone else, they need jobs. But still. It just seems like everywhere you go, someone wants your money. There are good reasons and there are bad reasons. There’s charity, and then there’s canvassers lunging at you. There’s making a donation once, and then there’s getting repeatedly spammed. I sometimes think to myself that I don’t want to live in this world if these are the rules.
Nobody wants to hear about what we have to say because we don’t foam at the mouth, call your mama names, or say anything that’s gonna juice the ratings.
Dear Linc,
I am a nerd. That is the only reason that could explain why I woke up this morning, not just with any ol’ news theme stuck in my head, and not just any ol’ CBS Evening News theme, but the CBS Evening News theme specifically from the Katie Couric era.
I have no plans for the weekend. Maybe something will come up with my friends, but for now, mostly reading will be involved. I shocked a coworker when I told her that each day after work this week, I was looking forward to reading Confidence Men. “That’s what you read for fun?” she exclaimed to me. This same coworker was again shocked when I accidentally sent her this Lync message:
sorry i’m replying late. i was chit chatting with the cute fedex guy hahahaha
This coworker is nice, but I never talk about personal stuff with her. That message was meant for another coworker whom I’ve gotten chummy with in recent months, but I was moving so fast that I mixed up the IM windows. To my relief, she replied:
o yea? i will have to check him out some time :)
I wasn’t expecting her to come back with anything horrible, but my face still went flush with burning red as I stared at the screen, realizing my mistake, and awaiting her response.
So, I’ve bought my first magazine on the Nook. Like deciding which book I should buy first, and probably like with most decisions that most people would not consider spectacular, I probably overthought (and overwrought?) the magazine. It came down to either Time or The New Yorker. Sadly, my favorite magazine, Vanity Fair, is not available on my little ol’ 1st generation Nook. I will have to someday upgrade to something of iPad-like status, or maybe the actual iPad. Who knows?
It was The New Yorker, and it was just right. Not only was it an issue dotted with coverage about the passing of Steve Jobs, but there was also a short piece about the MLB Fan Cave. I did not know about this until I spotted the summary of the article in the table of contents and mused, once again, about the vagaries of fate.
“I knew my husband for only four months before we got married. But I heard from others how protective, tender, and devoted he was to her. Because of...”
