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Star Wars:

Spoilers. Dont read if you dont want to know. If you havnt seen it yet, go somewhere else.

As I sat there waiting for Star Wars to begin, I laughed at the irony. I was 30 years old sitting in a movie theatre with my Mother. Oh how the circle turns. As the yellow text leaped onto the screen, she whispered in my ear, “Does this make you feel like a kid?” Yes Yes it does. And boy did they spoonfeed me.

Glad I could see how the twins got to their separate homes. I wouldnt have caught that from the previous trilogy. Glad you showed me the Death Star being built, though 20 years is a long fucking time to build a Death Star without anyone noticing. Didnt it only take them a few years to nearly build the second one? Maybe this was only a test run and shortly after it was built, it blew up. Maybe they had design problems and needed to fix them. Maybe that could explain why they still had a major flaw in the final version. I dont care any more.

Like David, I spent the first part of the movie bored. Oh they were fighting with sabers and such, but it was boring. No real concern for them. As I was bored, I started waiting for the change, the moment he would become evil, EVIL. Unfortunately this helped to make it not as great as I had hoped. It was better than I expected, but not as good as I had hoped.
I was disappointed with both Count Dooku and Mace Windu’s death. Both seemed insignificant, though they had become crucial characters (or at least as crucial as a SW character can get).
Only exciting thing was Anakin’s transformation and it really wasnt that exciting. The conversation with Palpatine was great. The rest of the dialogue was SW usual fair. But the worst thing about the movie was nothing was left to the imaginations. Yoda gets hurt, so thats why he moves like an old man. Yoda is going to train Obi-wan to talk to his former Master and learn how to be immortal (Blue glowy), not just a gift for putting up with all the shit the sith and regular people dealt out.
Every mystery built up by our pondering imaginations has been explained in explicit, excrutiating detail. Somehow this has tarnished the movies. I am almost to the point of denying the existence of the new trilogy. To Weatherly: You can only love the original trilogy if you watched it as a kid. You can only enjoy the new trilogy if you are a kid or love the old.

I only enjoyed SW III because I love the old.

I will purchase SW III and watch it one last time when I watch all of them in a row (and I may skip through parts).

NIN:

Regardless of the delay because our waitress couldnt count out change, regardless of arriving as NiN was taking the stage because the directions were not the best, regardless of not being in our seats because others decided we were not coming, the concert was fucking awesome.
It was loud, it was hot, it was crammed just enough with people. Nothing like a full house to up the energy. Trent and gang were great. I lost my voice from screaming. I was soaked in sweat. I felt like I was 19 again. Our “seats” were on top of him. I could have spit and hit him. The music was loud and the bass vibrated my nether regions. I sung every song all the lyrics, except for the quiet ones. I shouted SUCK SUCK SUCK when prompted. It was great.
And again in the tradition of concerts, I missed the opening acts.

If my week would have ended Tuesday night, it would have been a great week.

Damn, I wish it had.

Tuesday morning was one of the worst mornings of my life, but it was worth it.

Wednesday morning, we drove David to the airport. He boarded a plane and flew to New York. He has moved to NY. I have spent nearly all of his 24 years within LOS. He even lived with Amanda and me for a year. He has now grown up, moved out, and is getting on with his life. I am happy for him. But I cried the same.

Good return trip with Melissa and Ron. Though I tried to hide it, I was sad the entire trip back. I laughed and joke with them, but I wished David was riding back. I will miss both, Ron and Melissa. Melissa when she moves away in August and Ron when Amanda and I leave.

Later that night Amanda’s car blew a tire. She was ok, but I had to go be the “savior”. Luckily we had to money to pay for the repairs.
Melissa, David and Ron will be happy that we didnt drive my vehicle up to Houston. Lately, I have been hearing a grating sound coming from the front end. Supposedly its the gear box and one of the front axil bars. Everything is shaking on the front end. I am surprised it hasnt fallen off. Its going to hurt when I get it fixed.

I am tired. I enjoyed the trip, but unfortunately for me it ended too early and with me at my house alone, crying. Ron asked if I wanted to go to see SW again. I couldnt bring myself to go. I was too weak. Luckily, Amanda needed my help, so I couldnt dwell on it.

Sometimes, I think I love people too much for my own good.

I heard on Talk of the Nation today that some doctors are starting to see because of evidence that Depression is a disease related to the deterioration of specific areas of the brain. Kind of like epilepsy. I wonder how much damage I am allowing to be inflicted on me, but sometimes I dont want to worry about it.

Wilbur

I have updated the my site by reestablishing old versions of the site in the “Flashy” section.

Go be amused, and have fun with the old versions. I will try to date them later.

Wilbur

“Sometimes I wonder: if the people who make up style sheets and enforce them are so damn fond of arbitrary and indefensible “rules” not grounded in usage, even the usage of the intellectual elites, why don’t they just invent some? Say, your press won’t publish any word with the letter “z” in it, or any sentence that begins with a vowel letter, or any occurrence of the pseudocleft construction, or the sequence “is for” (no matter how it arises)? I can think of hundreds of entertaining “rules” of this sort. You could hire people to enforce them, and make every book published by your press ENTIRELY CONSISTENT with them. And then schoolchildren everywhere could be drilled on these “rules”. Your press could go down in history.

Hey, John Dryden did it for stranded prepositions. Some still-unidentified person(s) did it for possessive antecedents for pronouns, less than a century ago. There’s plenty of territory still available. Talk it up to your board.”
Arnold Zwicky

If you are interested in why he said this, start here:
Don’t do this at home, kiddies!
then go here:
What I currently know about which and that
and here if you want:
The people from the CCGW are here to see you
and finally to the one linked above:
Five more thoughts on the That Rule

He is so right on so many levels.

Wilbur

Since we only have a week left to discuss our plans, I thought I would start the ball rolling. I assume from Ronnie and David’s insistence on going to see Star Wars tuesday that Ronnie is not off on Monday and David really wants to see Crash again. I really dont have the money to go see Crash. The other reason why I wanted to see Star Wars on Monday is that Amanda would be able to see it with us. But back to important things, that being Nine Inch Nails.

I am off on both Tuesday and Wednesday, so I am open to almost anything. We need to plan on being in Houston at least around 5 or 6PM. This would allow us to check in to the hotel, clean up, eat, and then go to the show. If we are to see Star Wars on Tuesday, then we will have to see it at least 6 hours before the show, which is at 8:00pm. As David and I will attest, it would be better to be there at least 30mins ahead of time, if we want to see the opening acts, or we could get there just in time and miss the first opening act, hehe. So we would have to leave at least around 4, and drive like bats out of hell.
Stars Wars will currently be showing at the Grand for these times on the 24th.
Tue 5/24/2005 10:00 AM
Tue 5/24/2005 10:30 AM
Tue 5/24/2005 11:00 AM
Tue 5/24/2005 11:30 AM
Tue 5/24/2005 12:00 PM
Since the movie is 2 hours long these are the only ones that would get us leaving Lafayette around 2 which would put us in Houston for 6, giving us 2 hours to check in to the hotel, get something to eat and then go to the show.
David leaves from Houston around 11am or 12noon to NY on the 25th. So we really wont have time to see SW on Wednesday.
But this all hinges on when we can leave. David, Ronnie and I have taken off for those days, I assume. Melissa are you off both days?

When do we want to leave for Houston?
We will either be taking my (no ac) car or David’s (dies in traffic) blazer or Amanda’s (not a lot of leg room, but has a/c and runs great) car, if she can make alternate plans for getting to work.

So post your ideas or questions.

I just found out that I dont have a PAC number. I dont have a PAC number because I am not a graduate student. I am not a graduate student because I did not enroll this semester. I must re-enroll into the Graduate program and be accepted. I am a little upset right now, but its all directed at me. If I cant get back into school, then I do not know what I will do.
May the luck of Phil be with me.

Wilbur

I finished grading everything for one of my classes. Come to find out every student made either a C or D, disregarding the one that stop coming to class and only showed up for the final who lord be told got an unexpected “F”.

Here is the problem. I dont like this fact. My grading scale is strange to begin with and it usually works well*. I mean nearly 8 classes of teaching and I have only had this happen this time. I usually get a couple of A’s, a few more B’s, whole shit load of C’s and then the occasional D or F for the deserving student. So why the lack of A’s and B’s. Well it seems my students didnt do so well on the papers and many that did, did not do so well on the homework (such as not doing it.)

So whats the problem you ask? Well Im currently playing with the figures and the numbers to see if I can change curve the class without passing the ones who didnt do the work to pass. This is wrong in my opinion. I shouldnt be messing with weights to see who will pass and who will not. I use a grading rubric to eliminate bias. I grade hard because damnit someone should. Oh fucking hell I hate this shit. I feel terrible when I know a student tried their best and only got a 73 / C. I can justify it with rational talk such as well the student would have made a low C in another class. And the students who made a 60 or below would have failed in another class, but they are passing with a C. I know, I know. But it still upsets the fuck out of me.

*My grading scale:
90-100 – A — reasoning — its hard to get an A in fact you have to do above the call of duty to get an A
75-89 – B — reasoning — somone who makes a few mistakes but hits the major areas — Content and Organization can swing a B. Its not impossible, but it requires effort.
55-74 – C — reasoning — if you work hard but cant quite grasp something or have small errors that keep repeating, I can nail you hard for them and you can still walk away with a C.
45-54 – D — reasoning — D means you have major problems, it should hurt but not to the exten where you cant come out of it. Depending on the number of assignments. One or Two D’s does not mean the end of the world.
0-44 – F — reasoning — If a student scores an F, they presented a paper which shows either a need for serious help and maybe a second try at the class or an unwillingness to do what is needed.

The grading rubric breaks the areas I grade for into 5 areas – Content and Organization, both of which have a multiple of 5; Syntax, which has a multiple of 4; and Diction and Grammar, Mechanics, and Format, which both have a multiple of 3. Within each category, the student can get a grade of 1-5 which is multiplied to the multiple. This allows the student to realize that working on Content and Organization will benefit them more than working on the others, although they are harder to fix than the others. This rubric is the main reason it takes me so long to grade papers.

*edited for spelling error — I knew cubric didnt sound right but it was long day*

Full Disclosure is now in session. The honorable Horselover_Fat is presiding. (Stop throwing the tomatoes).

Wilbur

Students are finally getting worried about their grades, but it is too late for most. David is preparing to leave. So is Weatherly, and Melissa. I am going to be down in this hellhole with only Amanda and Ronnie to talk to. It is my own fault. I should have finished and left years ago.

Im tired. Not sleeping well. More fucking papers to grade. I hate grading papers during this time of the year.

Good luck tonight at the reading Melissa.

This news article stopped my reading of the daily news on Google and is making me think about what I believe.

I realize the mother has the right to sue the hospital, but should she? I remember when the law was being debated to stop doctors from killing a baby if it was born during the abortion process. I thought of the horrible life the child would have. It seems that this has happened.
The mother did not want the child. She did everything in her power to end the pregnancy, but because of a mistake (or two), she is now a mother. You can tell the child the truth because that would ruin any chance the child has for happiness. “I’m sorry but I didnt really want you and tried to have an abortion but the doctors fucked up and now Im stuck with you. Oh by the way you had a twin brother, but he was terminated.” This childs life will be amoung the worse. The mother did not want the child. I see situations where the mother yells at the child screaming “I didnt want you in the first place”. Maybe not, maybe everything will be hunky dory and everyone will live happily off the settlement that will come soon from the hospital.

I should stop reading the news. I depresses me.

Wilbur

“you’re keeping in step
in the line
got your chin held high and you feel just fine
because you do
what you’re told
but inside your heart it is black and it’s hollow and it’s cold

just how deep do you believe?
will you bite the hand that feeds?
will you chew until it bleeds?
can you get up off your knees?
are you brave enough to see?
do you want to change it?

what if this whole crusade’s
a charade
and behind it all there’s a price to be paid
for the blood
on which we dine
justified in the name of the holy and the divine

just how deep do you believe?
will you bite the hand that feeds?
will you chew until it bleeds?
can you get up off your knees?
are you brave enough to see?
do you want to change it?

so naive
to keep holding on to what I want to believe
i can see
but i keep holding on and on and on and on

will you bite the hand that feeds you?
will you stay down on your knees?”

Ok so we have heard the song numerous times. These are the lyrics stolen from Daps Lyrics.

Can we see an overall message? Well Ronnie has and I have proof to back him up. Ronnie sees an anti-religious message within the song similiar to “Heretic”.

What evidence do we have for this?

Lexical (Semantic) Domains of religion and Catholicism link most of the lines with the song.

holy, divine, blood, crusade, believe, hand, heart, high, knees, see . . .

So what is Trent saying in the song. The people are in line, then on their knees, being fed something, which later is said to be blood, which they dine, justified by the name of the holy and the divine. The people are being given communion.
Later after saying he is one of them with the use of “we”, says “so naive / to keep holding on to what I want to believe”. Here he is calling people who practice in this “charade”, which is religion, are “naive” as he is and should “bite the hand that feeds” or be “brave enough to see” the charade and so forth.

More on this later.