After Comrade Bloomburg silenced the protesters at the Republican National Convention, they were forced to take their march from the plush, grassy knolls of Central Park to the streets immediately outside Madison Square Garden. Conversely, the Democrats were even considerate enough to furnish their protestors with a cozy Protest Pen situated in a parking lot–complete with barbed wire fence–isolated from all possible distractions, including the media. The Republicans have yet to be so generous.

In other, totally unrelated news, President Bush has been extraordinarily slow in meeting non-president John Kerry’s demands to silence the Swift Boat Vets. Free Speech is good, yes, but not when it gets in the way of a good campaign.

So I was just watching Lou Dobbs on CNN, waiting until they read the results of the online poll they’d been running for the whole hour. The poll asked, Do you believe illegal aliens should be able to collect social security benefits? I’d been periodically checking the results of the poll throughout the hour, and the highest percentage for No was 97% and the lowest was 93%. When the anchor read the results of their own online poll, she announced that 7% voted Yes and 93% voted No. I went online to check, and the current answer was actually a 5/95 split within 5 seconds of the tv reporting a different figure. There had only been about 3,000 votes for this poll.

Amazing. Can someone explain to me why a live news channel cannot read an instant online poll correctly? I don’t even know what they would be trying to prove if they did intentionally fudge the results!

Well, I’m all settled into the room I’ll be in for this semester. I suppose I felt it necessary to take part in the move-in day festivities, so I moved all my stuff across the 3′ hallway into Chun’s old room–the smaller of the two. There really is a rationale behind it, but it’s an audiogeek thing, so I won’t explain. Now I’m just sitting here waiting for Matt to get here tonight. Everything’s done around here. I even did a little cleaning just in case the place was starting to get that funk; funk perceivable only to non-residents. You’ve experienced it… walking into a friend’s house or apartment and being overwhelmed with a mysterious fragrance that is apparently invisible to the owner.

I really don’t enjoy cleaning, contrary to popular opinion. It’s more like a feeling that it needs to be done in order to not gross out visitors. It’s possible that my little cleaning spree today was inspired by Amy’s comments last night. Tara and Amy came over to see my sweet pad, and Tara noticed a pungent odor. It wasn’t so much a bad smell–I noticed it too–but I couldn’t place where the smell originated, and that bothered me. “Well, what does it smell like?” I asked, trying to pinpoint the possible cause. Amy apparently couldn’t handle it: “It smells like ugly.”

Ugly? I didn’t know it had a smell. I’ve heard it used to describe a physical characteristic or an attitude, but not a smell. Dictionary.com’s definition placed it as an adjective used primarily for the visual, but I suppose her description could work if loosely applied to the Princeton definition.

Ha! Ugly… I’ll have to work on that smell. Maybe it just needs some ventilation to let all the ugly out.

By the comments, I take it the last post wasn’t a favorite. Anyway, this one can’t be long, I’m afraid. Chun moved out, and it seems that I must search the city rounding up all new kitchen stuffs between the time I get off work and my rediculously early bedtime of 11p.

A while back, I was cruisin’ the plush streets of Memphis with my brother. I believe the street was a certain Mendenhall–a clearly Jewish name which makes the picture all the more hilarious. As the day faded to a later hour of that very same day, o’er the horizon we see an oddly shaped statue coming hurridly to meet us. It turned out to be:

Why not build a god in your front yard?

Firstly, let me announce how grieved I am that I will have to divvy up the common goods with Chun by Tuesday. You see, the “Man” at Belmont has kept him down by raising tuition. Seems to be a common problem around school, as he is not the first of comrades to have been stricken.

The next item up for bids is Fahrenheit 9/11. I’ve told people that I wanted to see it, but paying 8 bucks–the ridiculous price of a movie ticket in Nashville–wasn’t exactly on my To-Do list. Cue lights from heaven:

I don’t agree with the copyright laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they’re not trying to make a profit off my labor. I do well enough already and I made this film because I want the world, to change. The more people who see it the better, so I’m happy this is happening. -Michael Moore

That’s right. Michael Moore himself condones the downloading of his movie. This was my opportunity to critique his work for free. (And I still have the Video CD’s of the movie in my car should anyone else care to see it.)

Having never experienced a black market DVD, I was surprised at the astoundingly low quality. Apparently strapping a tiny camera to a wheelchair doesn’t produce excellent quality video or sound… or have a zoom-out function of any kind.

All I can say it, “Wow.” I am simply grateful to live in a country of free expression. And that expression being of the uninhibited type brings with it both the extraordinary examples of art and the somewhat incoherent ramblings of a narcissist. Hey… it happens. I love that Michael Moore has a right to do it. It’s a shame that he would abuse such a privilege by deceiving his audience. But I’m sure Moore would write the deceit off as necessary to prove a point that he believes to be true. But when your audience sees facts put back into context and they seem to prove the opposite of your point, well… you lose integrity. Right now Moore’s accepting audience seems to be mainly people who were already mad at Bush (not making any advances there) and college students.

Now, he does seem to have a nice slice of Gullible Pie there. I’m ashamed that many of my peers seem to get their news from merely one or two sources. I know the Daily Show is hilarious, folks, but is that the tiny field from which you glean your political ideology? Surely you cannot expect to see one movie, even if filled with the most accurate information, and expect to instantly be transformed into an informed citizen. Every news agency has bias. That’s right conservatives, even Fox News leans. It’s not an entirely bad thing. You must simply understand where the bias lies and read around it.

Listen, if you’ve arrived at your political positions by a variety of sources and personal beliefs and they more closely align with Democrats, by all means, please vote for Kerry. The same for Republicans. I’m sick of seeing Americans get caught up in a political machine and buying the party lines. Make up your own mind, we have that freedom in this country! Go see Fahrenheit 9/11. Read Lilek’s Bleat. Enjoy some JibJab. Any by all means, on November 2nd, please go vote.

Viking was in town, so the boys and I decided it would behoove us to partake in the Wednesday ritual of “All You Can Eat Wings” at Hooters. It’s always a glorious event. Throughout the meal, I kept noticing this one particular waitress catching my eye. Now, I try not to be “that guy” who stares at Hooters. I’m being honest; I really do go for the wings. Any poor sap that pays $8 for Hooters’ boobies should be required to check his boys at the door. Anyway, I thought it odd that a Hooters girl would be eyeing me down, but I mentioned it to the guys anyway. I tried without luck to resist the temptation to let my eyes roam the room, knowing full well that I’d catch her eye again.

I thought for sure that I’d inadvertently stared at her at some point, and she was thinking that I was the very kind of creep I described above. She was even whispering comments to other patrons about me (I was sure of it since she was staring at me the entire duration of these comments).

Around the time I had planned to ask our waitress for To-Go boxes, though it’s well known that Hooters’ management keeps those Styrofoam treasure chests under lock and key on Wednesday nights, our waitress came bounding up to the table with a big grin on her face.

“You have an admirer,” she informed me, followed by a napkin with the name and number of my admirer. Jennifer. Apparently I’d caught her eye with my dashing good looks and rakish charm. Wait, scratch that. That’s hot sauce on my face, not rakish.

So though I am quite flattered, and though it certainly made for an awesome Hooters visit, I don’t think I’ll be calling Jennifer. I don’t think she’ll mind though. The 22 year-old seemed a little disappointed when I told her I was 19 anyway.

>
>—– Original Message —–
>From: Singleton, Matt
>Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 3:17 PM
>Subject: Scam Warning
>
>
>
> I hate people that forward too many warnings as much as
> anyone, but this one is important!
>
> Send this warning to everyone you know, friends and enemies!
>
> If someone comes to your front door saying they are
> conducting a survey on deer ticks and asks you to take
> your clothes off and dance around, do not do it!
>
> IT IS A SCAM; they only want to see you naked!
>
> I wish I’d gotten this yesterday. I feel so stupid now.
>
>
>
> Received from Andy Csordas.
>
>

It’s been a day of rest, indeed. I was roused this morning from a truly harmonious 9 or 10 hours with my pillow, give or take, by a phone call from my good buddy Stuffy. No, my friend is no allergy-tortured middle schooler, his last name is Stufflebam. Having a tendency to use the last-name moniker is a tell-tale sign of a college student; so is using abbr.

Some two hours later I was finally able to trudge through the bulwark of my bedroom door and make my way to the kitchen. Bran. Bowl. Milk. Done.

The haircut today went better than last, although I suppose it has to grow out a little bit. I can’t complain though, he gave me what I asked for. I just didn’t know I’d asked for the lesbian frullet special.

I’m pretty sure I’m living in a horror movie. I’m sure of it. My bedroom light flickers somethin’ evil when it’s switched on. I’ll start to worry when I hear background music while I’m in the shower.

CNN’s reporting right now that official intelligence suggests that Al Qaeda intends on hitting New York’s financial institutions again. Watch it, Bush. You’d better make sure the intelligence is solid before you act on it. No, three’s not enough. You need four other intelligence agencies corroborating your intelligence. Oh, by the way, Mr. President, we think it’s really awful of you to not do anything to stop 9/11 when you knew the evidence pointed to it. For shame. Good think Europe loves Kerry. He’ll surely be able to bolster global support for our substantiated War on Terror. Well, the French love him anyway.

I watched The Butterfly Effect tonight, and I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the Director’s Cut ending. If you haven’t seen it, or have only seen the Theatrical Cut, please leave now. This ride’s over.

I mean it, shoo.

Alrighty, now that that’s taken care of. After forcing myself to get beyond the idea that one can recall memories and in such a way change his past and future, I cannot conceive of how hard it would be to essentially not allow yourself to have ever lived because you know that your mere existence causes unimaginable hardships for those you love and your descendents. That’s what happens in the Director’s cut. But for the first time, the alternate ending is actually more than just a different camera angle.

In the Theatrical version, he fixes Kayley’s future by telling her that he hates her when he meets her for the first time. As a result, they never become friends, and their lives never impact each other. On an entirely different scale, that is also a monumental sacrifice. How odd that giving her the very antithesis of the truth is the most loving thing he could say to her. I almost understood why Chun cries in movies. But then I remembered I’m not a wuss.