An allusion to something obscure |
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Faking it as an English major 
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Monday, September 17, 2001
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Americans don't feel safe because of the attack. Islamic Americans don't feel safe because of the attack and revenge hungry American bigots. Since tuesday I've heard a few vague rumors about caucasian students turning their rage towards William and Mary "students of non-western descent" (the words of Sam Sadler, our vice president of student affairs). My friend James told me that his ex-girlfriend (who is half Egyptian) has been accosted several times. I don't know any of the details of the incidents on this campus, but I can be essentially 100% positive that no William and Mary student is affiliated with a terrorist group. James's ex-girlfriend is born and bred in Philly girl, a graduate of Georgetown University and is currently attending law school at Penn. Both of her parents are doctors in Philadelphia. Can anyone justify making her feel unwelcome in her hometown? I can't. Americans are Americans. It doesn't matter what part of the world their family came from. We are all in mourning for the thousands of lives lost on Tuesday and we are all angry, but we must not allow ourselves to give into blind hate. If we do, then I really am afraid of what is to come. Monday, September 10, 2001
Everyone should listen to Wyclef's Perfect Gentleman Just cause she dances gogo hehe Sunday, September 09, 2001
It occurs to me that I should explain the previously metioned dillema. I want to play detuned power chords, but everything I'm learning this semester tells me thats wrong, but the music industry has been telling me it's ok since the early days of the grunge era. I'm torn between the intellectual side of music that William and Mary has shown me and the pop music of my middle school days. Eh, I'll just write my story for creative writing instead.
So this semester I'm studying piano, Jazz guitar and tonal composition and all I really want to do right now is tune my guitar down a half step, crank the distortion on my amp and spend forty five minutes beating on power chords.... I blame Nirvana for my dillema. Saturday, September 08, 2001
Oh I've also discovered that I should actually spend most of my time sleep deprived. When I'm actually well rested my brain and function at full capacity. That's a bad thing. When I'm well rested the normal flat line that runs through my brain is replaced by things like "I wonder what it would take to make the muffin shop explode." and "I bet I could use the radio station to create an evil army of brainwashed minions." Part of what makes the problem worse is I have an annoying habbit of vocalizing these thoughts, which scares the hell out of my friends. I mean I have no real desire to blow up the muffin shop or to have a brainwashed army... although my own personal army would be kind of cool... Anyway the point is I need to sleep less before I give i to my super villian urges. By the way, I have a shirt that says, "runs with scissors". I love this shirt.
Ok so despite the fact that the building that houses the biology and psych department in slowly crumbling into a large smoking pile of rubble and a major freshman girls dorm was declared unihabittable due to asbestos over the summer, the college chose to build a fancy game room in the basement of the University center. It's possibly the coolest thing WIlliam and Mary has ever done. They have free skee ball! My plan is to become a Skee Ball god and then head down to busch gardens and clean up. I'm already on my way I hit the 150 hole today. I did a happy dance and flexed on the machine. Then I realized I was a dork for being that excited over skee ball. In other news I'm taking another creativ writing class so there will be more stories posted here in the near future. I actually should be working on one now, but I'm feeling extremely lazy. I'm also soon going to be a DJ at WCWM, W&Ms campus station. I started on the path to becoming one freshman year, but I got caught up in the whole fraternity thing for a while and then kind of forgot about it. I decided to go back after A friend of mine told me they still had my trainee card and I could finish the last three hours if I liked. I have nothing better to do so I said "ok" and head to the music listening this afternoon. I was happy to find out that the station is moving away from the godawful RPM music that it was infatuated with my freshman year. Another big reason I left was I could never bring myself to play the A-list stuff without feeling dirty. Lets see any other updates... I'm throwing my hat back into the frat world again, but this time I'm rushing phi mu alpha. It's a music fraternity, the real fraternities make fun of it. I figure I'll be safe there and even if they do turn out to be psychotic, I've walked away from one frat, I can do it again. I guess that's it for now. I'm going to work on my story. Monday, August 27, 2001
I'm settled safely in my dorm and am now enjoying the benefits of an ethernet connection. mmmmm audio galaxy mmmm Wednesday, August 22, 2001
I just got back from a six week romp in the UK. The old suck ass machines at Christ's wouldn't let me blog. That explains the lack of posts for july and August. I don't have an excuse for June though. I'm just lazy. Monday, May 21, 2001
Sorry for the lack of posting, I got busy with finals and moving out of my dorm and then forgot this page. I'll be back when I have something to say. Thursday, April 26, 2001
Wednesday, April 25, 2001
I'm not sure what to say about my grandfather right now so I'll post this article from the Washington Post Friday, April 20, 2001; Page B06 James L. Snyder, 76, a broadcast journalist for more than 40 years who while working for the Post-Newsweek Stations directed landmark changes in the format, organization, and operation of Washington radio and television properties, died April 19 at Buckingham's Choice retirement community in Adamstown, Md. He died of complications related to strokes and heart disease. Mr. Snyder became vice president for news at Post-Newsweek Stations in 1968. His first assignment was to organize and launch the successful and immensely popular all-news format at WTOP AM radio, which at that time was owned by The Washington Post Co. He became news director of WTOP-TV in 1969 and began building a news organization that became a pace setter in local television news. He paired Max Robinson and Gordon Peterson, and he was among the first to put an African American woman broadcaster on Washington television. Many of the people he hired in the 1970s are still with the station, which has changed ownership twice and is now Gannett's WUSA-TV. In 1978, when WTOP was swapped by Post-Newsweek Stations for WDIV-TV in Detroit, Mr. Snyder moved to Detroit as news director there. He returned to Washington and Post-Newsweek corporate headquarters in 1982 as consultant to the news departments in the Post-Newsweek stations in Miami, Jacksonville, Detroit and Hartford. From 1969 until his retirement, he also was executive producer of the weekly news discussion program "Agronsky and Company," which became Inside Washington in the late 1980s. Mr. Snyder retired in 1991 as a corporate consultant to news departments in Post-Newsweek television stations, In 1991 and 1992, he traveled to Romania and Bulgaria for the International Media Fund, lecturing on American television news to groups interested in establishing a free broadcasting system. In 1992, he became the first recipient of the Leonard Ziedenberg First Amendment Award. He received the Board of Governors Award of the Washington chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences in 1977. Mr. Snyder was born in Pittsburgh. During World War II, he served in the Navy in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. He began his broadcast career in the late 1940s when he was a college student. He worked for radio stations in Pittsburgh before relocating to Washington in 1959 as chief of the Washington bureau for Westinghouse Broadcasting. In that capacity, he covered the final years of the Eisenhower administration, the Kennedy-Nixon presidential race, political conventions and the Kennedy assassination and funeral. In 1965, he became the Washington producer for the "CBS Morning News." Later, he was the Washington producer for the "CBS Evening News" with Walter Cronkite. Mr. Snyder left CBS in 1968 to join Post-Newsweek Stations. Mr. Snyder was a volunteer reader for the visually impaired for Washington Ear, a member of St. Jane de Chantal Catholic Church in Bethesda and its St. Vincent de Paul Society, a golfer and a member of Kenwood Golf and Country Club. Mr. Snyder, a longtime resident of Bethesda, moved to Buckingham's Choice in January 2000. Survivors include his wife of 50 years, Anne Marie of Adamstown; five children, Mary S. Martin of Arlington, John P. Snyder of Frederick, James W. Snyder of Silver Spring, Catherine Snyder Charlip of Bethesda and Owen B. Snyder of Dedham, Mass.; and eight grandchildren. A daughter, Margaret Snyder Fugger, died in 1975. Sunday, April 08, 2001
My knee slipped out of joint on friday while bowling. I felt a pop and then I was on the ground, but I got a strike. It hurts to walk up and down stairs now. I hate being a gimp.
From the police beat in today's flat hat (william and mary's student newspaper): "Saturday March 31 - A non-student was arrested for indecent exposure and carrying a concealed weapon on confusion corner." I want to know where the weapon was concealed. Friday, April 06, 2001
I wandered through Colonial Williamsburg today with Katie. While we were there a young couple asked us to take they're picture infront of one of the houses. I know they would have been happy with a quick snapshot, but I took a second to compose the shot anyway. It reminded me how much I miss taking photos and working in the dark room. Sadly William and Mary's dark room is a pit and I don't have time. I'll have to help James put his dark room back together so I can use it over the summer.
Sometimes I wonder if my roommate forgets I live here too. I have my music going through my speakers and he just turns his on at a higher volume. Last night his fan broke. One of the blades broke off so it doesn't spin properly and makes an extremely annoying clicking sound. Naturally I shut it off before I went insane. Andrew didn't like this. He started tapping out the rythm of the clicking on the bed. Then I sweat he threw a couple of mini tantrums. Eventually he crawled out of bed and turned the fan back on. I waited 15 minutes before shutting it off again. He had fallen asleep by then, but I couldn't get back to sleep until five minutes before my alarm went off. I think there's only four weeks lefts. I can make it... Thursday, April 05, 2001
My creative writing professor told the class today that we had to keep taking writing courses in college. We owe it to ourselves and the world. The scary part is she believes it. Wednesday, April 04, 2001
I just made my schedule for next semester. Monday Piano Tuesday ethics tonal composition I British literature 1660-1744 Advanced creative writing wednesday Piano tonal composition I thursday the same as the tuesday schedule minus creative writing Friday Piano I'm also signed up for private lessons in Jazz guitar. I really do wonder if my dad thinks I'm wasting his money. Monday, April 02, 2001
I think I've officially run out of patience for this semester. My roommate can't tie his shoes without me snarling at him for making too much noise. Granted he is the loudest human being I have ever encountered, but I'm just getting silly now. I think I need more sleep, but I'm finding that between a mild case of insomnia and my roommates morning routine (see here I go again), more than four hours is impossible during the week. It's an odd couple from hell scenario. One roommate never thinks he's being inconsiderate and takes offense if you point this out to him and the other is annoyed by everything. I guess we do get points for never coming to blows. Although I think the new fuck off attitude I can't seem to get rid of might lead to trouble. There's only a month left. I can behave... in theory. Wednesday, March 28, 2001
Sunday, March 25, 2001
It's oscar night. I'm not planning on watching them myself, my roommate is though. He says it's the one thing he lives for each year. I pity him.
I went to see Mudcat Jones tonight. They're a rock band of William and Mary alumns. They covered Billy Idol and skeelow, made fun of limp bizkit and rocked out with a trumpet. What more could you want from a band? Saturday, March 24, 2001
A comment from some in my creative writing class on my last story: Realistic dialogue and character: I'd hook this dude up with a bong hit on the house anyday. Tuesday, March 20, 2001
Sunday, March 18, 2001
Here's my fourth story for creative writing. I never posted the third story because I don't like that one.
My friends here at school throw surprise parties for each other's birthdays. I've yelled surprise for Katie, Lars and Matt (in that order). My party was tonight. Now you would think that I could spot all the tricks we normal pull and figure out what's going on before they shout surprise and throw balloons in the air, but I didn't. I have to give everyone credit for being so crafty. They had to deal with the fact that I knew it was coming, so they first had to convince me that the party wasn't today. A phony call to order chinese and a trip to the blockbuster took care of that. I was all set for a night of take chineese and a movie, so when katie and I got back from the blockbuster and they shouted surprise I nearly had a heart attack. I'm glad they did it, but I'm worried that I'm a little too gullible. So we had pizza and icecream and then watched the movie we rented. I came to the realization that I've taken to many literature courses. We watched nurse betty and I found myself trying to break it down and analyze it. I even came up with a paper topic "Morgan Freeman as a black Jesus in Nurse Betty". The English department has gotten hold of me. There's no hope for redemption. We ended the evening by stopping by KDR. I did my best to shake my groove thang, but I'm a white boy and I dance like a white boy. I can't help it really, it's genetic. Thankful most of the brothers at KDR also dance like whiteboys so I fit right in. Wednesday, March 14, 2001
Sunday, March 11, 2001
I turned 20 on saturday. How did I celebrate? By almost getting arrested that's how. I'm going to put some random filler in here so keep the suspense up. I was having a rather lowkey birthday. I spent the morning taking down the names of hikers as they called my dad (who is never around on staturdays when all the potential hikers call him or info) and doing a little homework (very little it was my birthday after all), then I went to lunch with my mom and brother. After that I spent a few hours playing with my new dreamcast (I will never outgrow videogames). Then after the traditional cake and presents, James Joe and I went to the 9:30 club to see fighthing gravity. It was an excellent show. Fighting gravity never lets me down. I had maybe three blocks left in DC when I was pulled over. I had been driving with the parking lights on. The light switch in my mom's car and I have issues. The cop figured was drunk. After I passed the sobriety test he figured out that I was just really dumb. He decided to be nice and let me go, but he informed me that I could have been arrested for not having the car's registration. So that was my birthday, I bet you thought it was going to be a much more exciting story. Saturday, February 24, 2001
I was told today that I have a fantastic knowledge of bad movies. It seems that I have seen some of the most god awful movies known to man. The movie that inspired the comment was Chairman of the Board, otherwise known as the Carrot Top movie. It was on tv oneday and I had nothing better to do. Ok so maybe I had something better to do, I was just feeling lazy. My list is pretty exstensive. I've sat through three out of the four Highlander movies, Bill and Ted's excellent adventure and their bogus journey(they were on back to back one day), Chuck and Buck, Random Hearts, Anywhere but Here, Problem Child (one and two), Beowulf (with christopher lambert), Mortal Combat, Street fighter, Backbeat, SFW, and Showgirls. The last two bad movies I sat through were Dude Where's My Car? and Sugar and Spice. I think they were made worse by the fact that I saw them both in one night. It makes me wonder. Should I be ashamed of all the time I spent watching bad movies? Or should I just be ashamed of all the time I've spent watching movies period? I could have easily spent that time productively. Instead I was sitting in front of a screen and letting my mind rot. It's really amazing that I didn't wind up disturbed. Oh well Wednesday, February 21, 2001
Remember awhile back when I said I wrecked my car on 95 south? I had my court date today in Stafford County VA. All in all it was pretty uneventful. I think I was expecting more ceremony. I mean for me going to court was a big deal, for the judge and everyone else it was just another day. The balif mumbled his little "All rise..." speech. I wondered, "where's the love?" and "Why aren't you like Bull on Night Court?" I guess when you process a hundred traffic offenses on any given day, the excitement of dispensing justice dies. I did hear one of the best names of all time during the arraignments. Robert LaFever insisted on representing himself in trial (I think he was charged with driving on a suspended lisence). The guy looked like he missed the days before his beer belly when he still fit into his polyester leisure suit. He paid homage to his days as a seventies stud by slicking his hair back and wearing his shirt unbuttoned two buttons (this revealed a thick layer of protective fur). He would have been your average slob if it hadn't been Robert LaFever. There was something about his name that propelled him to new heights of sleeziness. Maybe it was a combination of the name and the man, but he was the oiliest character I've ever come across. I wish him luck in his case. I don't think he'll get the deal I the judge offered me. I can have the charges dismissed and removed from my record if I attend an eight hour driver improvement class. It will be painful, but it beats an extra insurrance hike. Sunday, February 11, 2001
I have a new pet peeve. I can't stand loud eaters. You know those naseating people that chew with there mouths open and make a lot of smacking noises. My roommate refuses to eat anywhere, but in our room infront of the tv. He just finished a rather large dinner. I think it was a taco salad. He smacked and crunched non-stop for half an hour. Now he's trying to suck the bits of brownie out of his teeth so the smacking has slowed down. I pointed out that he was loud eater once. He said, "Yeah, I know" and continued at the same volume. Is it that hard for a college student to learn to close his mouth when he chews? Why hasn't anyone told him before? I mean this is pretty disgusting. I guess it's further evidence in support of my theory that I'm living with a midget oaf. Sunday, February 04, 2001
Ok, here's my second story. I'm planning on re-writing part of the first story. The ending seems wierd to me (and everyone else who has read it). I'll post the revised version when I'm happy with it. Monday, January 29, 2001
Thursday, January 25, 2001
After several false starts and a pack of twizzlers, I managed to finish my first story for creative writing this semester. I have to go make 18 copies of it now. Monday, January 22, 2001
instead of writing I've been reading blogs. Nick said in his January 11th blog that the champagne I bought wasn't really champagne because it didn't come from France and that would be true if my bottle had infact not come from France, but the lable clearly said France. Whether it came from the Champagne region or not, I don't know. Anyway happy birthday Nick. I hope you're enjoying your totts or Arbor Mist or whatever you're celebrating with.
I didn't have the luck I was hoping for at the coffee shop. There wasn't a free table in a corner where I could sit unnoticed, but I did get a chai tea, which is a truly wonderful substance. It's hot and it tastes like rice pudding. I think I've found my new crack substitute.
I have to write a Kafka-esque story for creative writing. I'm kind of stumped for ideas. Maybe I'll go to one of the many coffee shops in the area and see what I can come up with while sipping a latte or maybe a chai tea... I'm slowly turning into a semi-trendy twenty-something. Does that scare anyone else? Tuesday, January 16, 2001
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