The time is out of joint.

The end of the semester nears, and I feel like I'm pumping the pedals of a bike whose wheels are all out of shape across the finish line. I've got to be out of the house by 6 a.m. to get into the newsroom on time for the final tomorrow at 8 (not 7:30, thank goodness). It's just after midnight and I still need to eat dinner.

I've done a terrible job documenting what it is that stopped me from updating this blog regularly, but I think I like it that way for now. I want to turn this experience into something overwhelmingly positive; I will use this as a platform for expressing a shift in perspective for me.

I clawed my way back up to (what I hope will be) an A-average in three of my classes, but Journalism, a field in which your ability to meet a deadline is tantamount, is far less forgiving to my GPA, and rightly so. I only hope that I can make it up to the awesome program this Fall.

I've learned a lot about what I can and cannot handle this semester. I've developed a lot of ideas about where I want to go and the world I live in. I worked part-of-a-part-time, I joined a club, and I had a few things published despite my failings and flailngs. It wasn't a stellar semester, but it was a good one.

No summer school this semester. I have a lot of "projects" in mind, and this blog is one of them. (Hint: the rest have to do with reading, catching up on all my DVD-watching; basically, this summer I will be simplifying, building, learning, and exploring at my own pace.)

I'm looking forward to it. Now, to get that dinner going.

Hello there! I am still not dead. I have just had my entire life derailed by a couple of weeks with the combined efforts of a chest cold/sinus infection/minor flu, a bunch of missed days of class, and the endless fury of the gods in punishment for my many shortcomings.

On April 21, Brian Graden gave a presentation at Mt. SAC. I wrote an article for class that didn't make it into the print edition on account of missed deadlines (see repulsive paragraph of self-pity above), so here it is. More to come.

----

“Contrary to some authority figures, I actually think you can learn everything you need to know about life from watching television,” joked the man who currently heads the empire that is MTV, VH1 and Logo networks April 21 at Mt. SAC’s music recital hall.

The crowd, consisting of those young adults mostly within the MTV target demographic, heard Brian Graden, the networks’ president, as he spoke about his journey of self-discovery and his rise to the helm of popular culture within the context of the lessons he learned on the way.

Fresh from judging at the Miss USA competition the previous night, Graden interspersed his speech with video clips that made the audience alternately laugh out loud and become soberingly silent.

Graden was tongue-in-cheek about his networks’ role in pop culture, showing among clips from past, current and upcoming shows with a parody clip from YouTube that mocked the pregnant music-filled pauses and drama in “The Hills” as an example of the consequences of his position. Another clip, from “College Library,” depicted a challenge in which a machine slapped a red-faced man repeatedly while a group restrained and shushed him.

“That goes on for half an hour,” Graden said drily.

But the quips were really about Graden’s story of success, which hinged, he said, on finding happiness and remaining true to himself.

Graden described his early life as one of conformity. He attended Harvard University as a youth, was engaged to a woman at a young age and had a career lined up in accounting. But, biologically gay and hating his field of study, he was miserable.

“I was hiding myself from myself,” Graden said.

Eventually Graden followed his happiness and broke into the world of television, convincing people to sign releases on the then-brand-new show, “COPS.”

“It didn’t matter that I was making $200 dollars a week and working 100-hour weeks and getting shot at,” Graden said. “For the first time ever, I was really, truly happy.”

Contrary to popular belief, Graden said, success does not lead to happiness. Rather, the opposite is true.

Part of that process included championing the cause of the animation, which depicted a Santa Claus-Jesus Christ showdown and foul-mouthed children, that later became “South Park,” which, Graden said, lost him a position as a FOX executive when his video Christmas card for personal friends spread beyond control. He stayed with the creators of “South Park” and, after many rejections and a financial and psychological struggle, finally achieved a single pilot at a small network. That network was Comedy Central.

“Do what you love,” Graden continued. “If you are happy, and you make yourself truly happy in this moment, then you’ll end up becoming successful beyond your wildest dreams.”

Graden encouraged the audience not second-guess themselves because of others with a clip from “College Life,” in which a University of Wisconsin in Madison student who was failing math because he partied too much. In reality, Graden said, the student harbored an idea from others that he did not deserve to succeed, even though he was smart enough to pass all his classes.

“If there’s any negative belief that you have about yourself that’s holding you back in any way, let it go,” Graden said. “It’s untrue, and the truth is that everybody in this room deserves all success and all the happiness in this life. It really doesn’t matter where you are at this very moment. It doesn’t matter where you come from, I am certain that it isn’t that. You can transform your life always.”

To illustrate, he showed a clip of Britney Spears stumbling at performance at the Video Music Awards from two years ago, followed by an image of Spears with an armful of VMA trophies.

“I think there’s an illusion out there, thanks to reality TV shows, that inside of 12 weeks you can become a top chef, a famous singer or a survivor just by backstabbing others and not getting eliminated,” Graden said. “The truth is, you’re going to have to work your ass off. But the difference is if you’re doing what you love, it’s really, really fun to do the work.”

After the speech, Graden fielded questions from a smaller group of students and presented, alongside Leisel Reinhart, two scholarships to Mt. SAC students W. Derod Taylor and Heather Rains. The scholarships were funded in lieu of Graden’s speaker fee.

----

Actually I like that I can post it here with a couple contextual links. I was one of the few students at the question fielding, and will try and get a transcript of the Q-and-A up tomorrow. I was pretty excited to have a chance to ask smart questions about things about pop culture I had seen from Merchants of Cool years ago in combination with what I have seen in the media. Instead, I kind of sat there like the useless INTP I am and squeaked out something about education, which was answered pretty admirably. Siiiiigh.

Today my little blue bird died.

We adopted her in 2005. She was a baby and her beak was still black.

She loved a little hot dog plushie (which was stolen in 2007 by a bratty cat)and would preen his hair.

My dad loved her more than anybody.

She was doted on constantly by that little yellow-green guy on the left since they were both babies:



I miss her.

Just behind on posts.
Things this week:

• Midterms
• Articles/interviews
• Catching up on studying/homework
• Work (I grade papers! Oh man do I have stories about being a T.A. in high school. I am an awful employee. Was, I mean. In high school. NOT NOW. Google, shut up about me!)
• Catching up on/re-doing sleep cycle
• Making the trek to the DMV for my written exam
• Rethinking the course of my life

Updates I should make:

• The Malibu runs like a wagon, does this bizarre pulsating revving noise while idle, and is covered in dings and nail polish in improbable places. It will be fixed up and sold to someone who is not me.
• I am really uncomfortable putting too much online right now. This is all too googleable and I hate doing this shovelware blogging but there ain't much I can say without offering a caveat or ten: what I have to say isn't all that interesting or non-libelous. I have really high standards of what I let the world read from me and it isn't this.
• Stuff in the works: the Renaissance Pleasure Faire (awesome nerdy bawdy Sunday), movies I've seen recently on DVD (and my soon-to-be Netflix experience!), stuff I'm doing with my awful draft I completed for 2008's NaNoWriMo (namely, quantifying it in order to separate myself enough to deal with it without having to actually read it), another Series of Transportive Events post, the arrival of my Coraline Nike Dunks in the mail earlier this week (photos to come!! I just need my camera) and several other things I want to roll in (retroactive posts are icky, but I may do them for the sake of organization. Besides, it would be on the timeline -- I went to the Ren Faire on Sunday, for instance, and the Dunks came in Tuesday.)

Keep an eye out for more from the hypnic jerk.
That is all.

Waylon Smithers w/ Malibu Stacy by Eay on Flickr via Creative Commons

I am doubly surprised at my fortune today. First, and to my utter nerdly delight, I found Serenity on DVD for $10! And I discovered that my dad went behind my back and purchased a 1997 Chevy Malibu for my use!

I don't know how to feel! I really don't. Should I be terrified? Happy? Guilty?

Just today I was telling Magali that my parents would never buy me a car in a million years, and here we are.

I think I will meet said Malibu this weekend. When I think of Malibu I think "Malibu Stacy" from the Simpsons. I think Stacy would be a great car name, especially if I consider the car a male. The car I'm learning on, a white 1986 Pontiac 6000, is called Mr. Wiggles on account of his former tendency to veer violently to the left.

I think I will read my handbook and get ready for my permit test tomorrow (the one I had expired last week). Then we'll see how these things reconcile themselves.

Print issue 2 of the Mountaineer is out, and mountiewire.com is printed right below the masthead, so I assume it's safe to link.

Before and after

The site is a little buggy right now, but there's already a ton of stuff to look through on the multimedia front. This gets me giddy. Go go go!

Photo credit: shc32 on Flickr via Creative Commons

The other day in my intro Italian class, my professor stopped her lecture and chastised the class for talking too much. I bristled despite myself, remembering my high school days not-too-fondly. I had to control that little nag of annoyance of my classmates and teachers -- it's what caused me to stop attending classes in high school and (consequently) put me here in the first place. What surprised me, though, is that I have yet to escape this stupid dynamic: kids act a little badly, teacher punishes kids, kids feel rebellious, teacher enforces more punishment, kids feel like crap and act more rudely.

It's true that there was a noticeable murmur on one side of the classroom whenever my professor drifted to the other side to answer a question or address someone directly, and she did tell people to quiet down. But the ensuing lecture about keeping our mouths shut while the professor was speaking seemed over the top to me. At several points she mentioned incredulously that she was not teaching kindergarten. If this is so, why were we being lectured about this at all? Wouldn't a polite reminder of respect suffice? Most of us at community college are technically adults by now, and I can't help but feel that we hardly act and are treated as such.

I have to wonder sometimes -- had I not screwed up so badly in high school, would I be in a four-year university right now? And would a professor of a four-year university harp on things like loudness and attendance?

I think the concepts of being an adult at four-years and community colleges are very, very different. At the CC level, most people are commuting and working and raising families or living at home and working toward a discernible goal. At higher-level schools dorms evoke a kind of childishness and don't really encourage work or family obligations. Yet I get the impression that rude conversations and ensuing diatribes wouldn't be tolerated at a four-year school. Why is it a norm here?

Also: SIIIGH ATTENDANCE. It enrages me that this is tied to grades at the CC level. If I can get my work done and the tests aced but I still miss a couple of classes, then I shouldn't be docked for a personal choice (or illness, in my case). I know that if I miss too much class I will fail. Things like attendance and self-control (texting? are you serious?) should be a personal responsibility for alleged adults. Professors shouldn't have to enforce this stuff.

Jonathan Mann -- of Song A Day fame -- invoked the lip-synching talents of the print-dinosaur staffers at his local alternative weekly, the East Bay Express.

Devastatingly hilarious and hopefully untrue. Maybe it'd work on my CC campus, though ...

I already have Mann's "Hey Paul Krugman" in my head, and now this? GET OUT OF MY LIFE JONATHAN MANN

This site disturbs me at a deep and fundamental level of my being. I can vaguely sense it plumbing the dusty corners of my mind, mussing up the wiring and causing me to be inexplicably drawn in by dancing boobahs and techno music.

Do not even think about drugs of any kind right now. If you are already under the influence of some mind-altering substance, I have nothing to say to you.

I leave you with screenshots of my last couple of hours.





How far gone am I? This last one is my desktop.


Bonus: This is a children's TV show. Watch the introduction.

EDIT 4/3/09: Quick and easy way to see if you're infected, redux:

The Conficker Eyechart

From the site:

Conficker (aka Downadup, Kido) is known to block access to over 100 anti-virus and security websites.
If you are blocked from loading the remote images in the first row of the top table above (AV/security sites) but not blocked from loading the remote images in the second row (websites of alternative operating systems) then your Windows PC may be infected by Conficker (or some other malicious software).

/EDIT

Earlier tonight, my dad walked in here and warned me about the "April Fool's virus," also known as Conficker.C. I brushed this off after a quick check of my updates. Then my mother, who knows little about the ways of computers, offered me the same warning. My interest was piqued.

As it turns out, ABC 7 aired a highly sensationalistic segment about Conficker, which of course embarrassed me to no end. When these stories come about, I sometimes -- very quietly, and in the back of my brain -- balk at becoming a journalist. (I almost lost it and had to stop the video at "It may be one of the most dangerous computer viruses ever!" [Emphasis added].)

I'm not exactly technically inclined, but I do lurk around the geekier circles of the Internet. I am very painfully aware what role the media tends to play in f'ing up the details when it comes to reporting on science and technology. I've been cringing through the hype. Part of me is glad that this increases awareness of overall computer safety by offering people all the defensive tips that they should be doing anyway (a lot of antivirus company reps, who I will not link here, are jumping to offer their quotes and figures). But part of me wants responsible journalism and good solid facts.

Not that this media frenzy is entirely unwarranted. It's true that Conficker executes its call home function on April 1. It's true that no one really knows what will happen when the virus accesses its hundreds -- soon to be tens of thousands -- designated websites and (maybe) collects whatever its instructions will be from its writer.

Theoretically, Conficker could update on April 1. Part of this could hypothetically mean gathering keyloggers out to steal your passwords and bank information. But overall this "April 1" thing seems to mean that Conficker will simply activate a new algorithm that generates the domain names for the web sites that tell it what to do. But this is not its payload: it could maybe possibly download a payload, and that's what's got security experts watching closely. No one knows what it's going to do just yet.


Rick Romero, ABC7 Consumer Specialist.

Conflicker has been closely watched since its first version, Conflicker.A, came about, and the scariest thing about it so far is its ingenious evolution over subsequent versions. It sneaks in though an unpatched flaw in Windows XP and Vista or through an infected USB device or CDs (in my reading, it can even infect XP boot discs, the little bastard). Once it's in your system, there's not much you can do; it disrupts antivirus software and Windows updates, booting up in safe mode, and access to PC security-oriented websites aimed at eradicating it. It's a nasty worm all around.

I apologize in advance for my own vague understanding of this threat. I realize this leaves me open to a lot of ribbing. Sometimes I wonder if I should add some diversity to my classes and up science classes. I think my dream job might have something to do with helping the media get the layman translation for pure science out to the general public. That way I wouldn't feel so much of the "GET HEADLINE OUT THERE" pressure and I'd learn some pretty neat stuff all the time. Though I suppose this kind of publicity helps with funding for projects. I digress.

A quick and easy way to check if you're infected with Conficker: try accessing any site that offers help, like Microsoft or Symantec. The virus will block access to these sites, which makes Rick Romero's link to Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool a little moot, but who knows.

Photo credit: Frants on Flickr via Creative Commons
I just spent an engrossing couple of hours going through the "Our Favorites" section at This American Life's website. TAL is a weekly radio show that showcases various stories (fiction, nonfiction, shorts, anything really fascinating or engaging) surrounding a different theme for each episode.

"Switched at Birth" struck me as particularly poignant (it's also the first on the list, heh heh). It tells the story of two women who learn that they were switched at birth -- from one of the mothers who knew about it for over four decades before telling either of them.

What's also striking to me, though is the photograph accompanying the story on its page. My sister recently came home from a friend's house carrying a large flat rate USPS box full to brimming with photographs, postcards, and newspaper clippings from the early 1910s through the 1970s. Piecing together this family's life -- the births, birthdays, and deaths -- gave me goosebumps. I spent hours in that box, finding in turns the library card, social security card, draft card (for the Vietnam War), letters and clippings, and the obituary of a 26-year-old veteran from Lancaster who died in a car accident.

There are road trip shots, Rose Parade shots (in front of Vroman's, circa 1972! There's a head shot, battered and torn, with some film credits and a physical description handwritten neatly on the back, an airbrushed portrait, a 30th anniversary Disneyland parking stub. There's so much that I feel like I should keep quiet about them until I'm ready.

I may post some of the less identifiable photographs at a later time. Right now it's just an odd and emotional concept to me. One day, your whole family can fit into a box of photographs. Our generation will have simple data that will be wiped off this planet as quickly as I could take a lighter to this box in my living room.

It's hard living in Southern California if you're a non-driver. My oddness in this became more pronounced when I started my commute to Walnut, which at first seemed to me a most suffocatingly suburban city and an unwalkable wasteland. The area surrounding Mt. SAC isn't bad, I'm sure -- I probably just see the blankness of Grand and the endless parking lots saturated with cars and not the wilderness and (maybe) the walking-distance destinations tucked into some undiscovered corner.

I hate driving. It's been on my mind for the last few weeks, now that I'm cramming for the DMV test and practicing. I've been asked by a lot of people why I despise it so much. Why is it that you take the bus to school so far away? What on earth do you do for 90 minutes on those horrible smelly things? It's an honestly innocuous question, but it gets me every time. I bristle and get defensive. It's irrational and rude but I hate to have to justify myself for what is, to me, such a personal decision.

Maybe it's because I don't support myself as my Mountie compatriots do, but I'm keenly aware of what a financial burden my driving would have on my family. I'm always (maybe egoistically) astounded by the costs otherwise perfectly reasonable human beings just get accustomed to: gas, insurance, and maintenance of a vehicle just don't make financial sense when some if not most people can easily do without a car altogether. My bus pass costs $36 a month, and even then I feel guilty asking my parents for that money when I'm already 18 and still at home.

I'm not advocating public transportation for everyone, though. The biggest costs I incur on the Metro are time and, I'll admit, my sanity. I'm probably just desensitized to the stresses of a 90 minute public-transport commute and the constant friction with other people on the bus as the drivers in this world are to the concept of traffic.

I've seen some awful things on the Metro, and my claustrophobia's forced me to (rather rudely) push past the crowd to jump off the bus at my stop, gasping and shaking and near tears. I'm not terribly social and being around so many people is really overwhelming sometimes, especially when the collective mood is tense after a long workday when everyone is tired and grimy and hateful. I came come from school sobbing for the first few days at Mt. SAC.

Driving is another process entirely. I can't jump out of the car when I'm on the 10 feeling the same sense of restlessness I get while on any road. On the bus I can read. I can catch up on my podcasts and listen to the news. I can do my homework and guarantee myself one-and-a-half hours of continuous studying without the distraction of Internet.

There's also the little matter that I cannot kill anybody by simply boarding a bus. Sometimes I feel like people completely fail to understand that they are accepting a shitload of responsibility by taking the wheel of a fascinating bundle of potentially deadly and complex machinery. I'm working toward being a good driver by compensating for my lack of peripheral vision (I'm nearsighted and I wear glasses) and for my own mental problems (I zone out and have trouble paying attention to what other people are doing. Imagine this applied to the friggin' road!), but I seriously doubt that I can master it and not do something stupid and avoidable at some point.

Peer pressure has given in, though. It's increasingly obvious that I need a car if I'm going to be here for much longer, and I cannot hope to find a walker's paradise until I get my act together and move out into the world. I'm learning the workings of driving itself and it's not fun. I'll tolerate it, though; who knows -- maybe I'll find that having control over something on my own will heal rather than harm.

I've never had Peeps in this color before! This lively orange (along with grass-green) is a new addition to the traditional spectrum of these adorable, classic, irresistible, and utterly inedible-looking quasi-foodstuffs. I was intrigued by these guys as I inhaled them; how did Just Born Inc. know that tic-tac orange and kelly green are my two favorite colors*, and that I'd never thought to eat a marshmallowey sweet that looks vaguely like vomit or vegetables? They certainly look unique, unlike their snooty pastel-colored brethren. Look at that misshapen eye! What's not to love?!

Add to this my love of wasting time watching people microwave Peeps on YouTube, and I was all set.

Then an unconscious tug of memory washed over me (it's standard with a post-Peeps gorging). Why was I so intrigued by the traffic-cone orangeness of this particular package of Peeps?

D:





*actually, these are my favorite colors! go figure.

While eating lunch in by the fountain in front of the library today, I was harassed repeatedly by a squirrel. I didn't mind at first except that the friggin' thing was frighteningly persistent. Someone had obviously fed it from a brown paper Crustano's bag before, and the rodent repeatedly jumped up right next to me, garnering some unwanted attention my way.

"Aww, look, a squirrel!" a girl crooned.

This made it very uncomfortable for me to try to feign kicks and to aim swears at the furry little thing, but I did it. Dirty looks ensued.

I love squirrels and fuzzy little animals. I hate rabies shots. I haven't had any shots, but I will do anything in my power not to be several thousand dollars in the hole just because I thought OHMYGOODNESS FLUFFY ANIMAL WON'T BITE.

I have a responsibility to protect the squirrels, too! Squirrels are wild animals. Wild animals that don't run at the sight of humans become dependent on them or overly trusting and susceptible to attack.

I was ready to write a post railing against the injustice of awarding bonuses to several members of AIG's Financial Products Unit, using millions of dollars of taxpayer dollars to do so. I was fully prepared to go on about the way that money should have been used, ready to go off Yahoo's front page and condemn Senator Chris Dodd (see "Dodd facing fresh political firestorm," Mar. 18) in all this reprehensible extravagant bonus muck. But the wonders of the ENDLESSLY FRUSTRATING Complicated Nature of Reality and Fact Checking have stopped me in my single-minded tracks.

And it is indeed complicated. So complicated, in fact, that CNN has opted to create a primer for what they've called an "ugly, ugly" bailout. They outline things nicely here.

From the beginning, the point was to keep AIG out of bankruptcy and afloat long enough so its dangerous financial bets could be unwound and its valuable units sold off to raise cash to pay back Uncle Sam. ...

Last Friday, AIG paid out about $165 million in bonus checks to employees who worked in the troubled AIG Financial Products unit. The bonuses were part of a larger package, some $450 million due to these employees in 2008-2009.

New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday said that 73 employees got more than $1 million each, including 11 people who don't even work for AIG anymore.

About the Yahoo! News story (the "scapegoat Dodd" angle played out at CNN too): it is completely incorrect.
Senator Dodd is not to blame, according to factcheck.org (full analysis):

The public record shows Dodd authored an amendment that would have prevented "any bonus" being paid to top executives of firms getting bailout money. It was the White House and the Treasury Department that insisted Dodd's amendment be watered down to apply only to bonuses paid under agreements signed in the past five weeks. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has taken public responsibility for that.

... so it looks like Geithner is either stretching the truth, or very, very bad at his job, if this bit from the previously-mentioned CNN Money is of any merit. (Hint: it is.)

Treasury chief Tim Geithner says he found out about the bonuses last week, although AIG revealed in regulatory filings last year that it was giving such bonuses. The contracts had been set up months before the government became a nearly 80% owner in the company. Treasury's lawyers said it would be legally difficult to block the bonuses.

Let's talk about money.

Look. According to google's calculator, 165 million divided by 170 billion = 0.000970588235.

To get the percentage of how much of our bailout money is taxpayer money, multiply that by 100.

0.000970588235 times 100 = 0.0970588235% of the bailout money.

This is $165 million.

$165,000,000

This is $170 billion.

$170,000,000,000

This is $2 trillion.

$2,000,000,000,000

I cannot even picture numbers this big, which is why the folks at mint.com put this ingenious series of images together. You see, the Fed is racking up another trillion dollars in bonds in order to inflate the economy, we're throwing money at our ongoing war on terror, and in the meantime we're lopping off teachers, books, scholarships and letting our infrastructure go to shit. And you know what? AIG sounds like a big enough monster in which to direct my anger.

Only it isn't one simple monster.

I leave you with the maddeningly logical comments of reddit user aGorilla , bestof'd here.

About the current CEO:

• He's being paid 1 dollar a year.
• He gets no bonuses, either way.
• He gets no stocks.
• He didn't sign these contracts, he inherited them.
  

About the people who tanked AIG:

• They are gone.
• They were few.
  

About the people who received the bonuses:

• They did not kill AIG
• They were offered these bonuses last year, to stay for another year, and clean up the mess.
• They reduced $2.7 trillion of shit to $1.6 trillion of shit.
  

About the bonuses:

• They are less than .1% of the bailout money.
  
• They were offered last year, to retain people until they cleaned up the mess.
• They were NOT meant to retain people for next year.
  

What if we didn't pay them?

• The people who are (successfully) cleaning up the mess, would leave.
• Then, they would sue (rightfully so).
• AIG would have to try to replace them, while trying to prevent losses on the suddenly 'unmanaged' accounts.
• AIG might be forced into bankruptcy, for defaulting (aka: we lose).
• AIG might survive, but take further losses, and need more help (aka: we lose).
  

This is where I heave a big sigh and tear out some of my hair.

I'm struggling now with the world "misled."

Chances are you're pronouncing it the right way: "miss LED".

For some reason I had it in my head that "MY sl'd" was an alternate pronunciation of the word, Bugs Bunny-style.

I worry too much.

The article I linked to yesterday about the Seattle P-I's all-digital switchover contained a quote that's been with me all day.

Copy editor Glenn Ericksen, a P-I staffer for nearly 25 years, said he had mixed feelings about the closure. Most recently working as a copy editor, he said, "I'm sad the print product will go away. It's the end of an era, and I'm not sure it's a good thing."

He said the Web "lowers the standard of literacy all around. Who needs copy editors on the Web?"

I need copy editors on the web. I'm a poor speller, and as much as I love the English language and tweaking it with the rule set it inherits, I like the ability to quickly comprehend what I'm reading under that same set of (nonsensical/ridiculous/convoluted) rules.

I'm not sure how to feel about the evolution of written communication for the web. Stuff will change no matter what language preservationists may say -- and those who lament the loss of Shakespeare's language probably know that when he got stuck with that iambic pentameter stuff and needed a word he made shit up.

Ryan North actually touched on the standardization of English(sort of) in today's edition of Dinosaur Comics. Language is a weird thing. It's a beautiful thing.

Sensational spelling and lolspeak are still hideous to me, but maybe in this new dawning of media they'll make much more sense.

The last paper issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer rolls off the presses tomorrow.

The Seattle P-I has become the "first major metropolotan daily" paper to make the switch to an all-online version. Psyched as I am to explore a quickly evolving field, I'm also worried about the integrity of news. I love the Internet. I live the Internet. It has brought about about some of the most innovative, daring stories that wouldn't otherwise be covered by the mainstream media. It encourages transparency and fact-checking. But it leaves quality control to the "general public," and when that happens, digg.com is born. Read some background on why I left digg.

From the Seattle P-I article:

Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, said Hearst's moves in Seattle will be closely watched.

"For large metropolitan dailies, what they are doing right now is not sustainable," he said. "They don't see how they're going to continue in anything but a downward spiral."

So, he said, there "will be a temptation" on the part of other dailies to make the all-digital shift.

In part, though, Rosen said that will depend on what happens in Seattle.

While Rosen said he doesn't make predictions, he said that if a news operation has a limited staff, "the smart thing to do is not pretend that you have everything, but to link to the best that's out there. If you are better at linking to everything that is important, then that is a basis for user loyalty."

In Sociology 1H I was outed as one of the few open Conflict theorists through some magazine-style multiple choice trickery. Unlike magazine tests, however, this one was pretty accurate: all I see in this great shift is a transfer of power. Without an obvious standard for information, it seems a given that huge numbers of people with access to tons of it at their fingertips would make sure nothing too egregious gets through. But I don't see that as the case.

The real power of the Internet (versus print journalism) is to control not what makes the news -- if you want a story reported, you can ensure it gets out somehow or other on the Web -- but how many people get to see it. Power makes people nuts. Power weakens the truth.

We need media-savvy readers. We need people who look beyond the Yahoo front page for AP headlines. If local is the new emphasis, we're going to need to trust locals to cover themselves responsibly to broadcast that to the rest of the world.

The only way to help the revolution along is to educate young students on journalistic integrity, proper skepticism, and responsible media absorption. An equivalent to Mt. SAC's JOUR100: Mass Media and Society class should be a requirement for elementary or middle school students. We need to make the media -- biases, ownership, industry standards -- as basic as math and English to our young kids, so that they enter the world able to view online outlets -- soon to be their main outlets -- with the same wary eye we view CNN and FOX. We need to teach them how to make and read the news by preserving journalism's core: to tell the story as it happened.

Let's see how Seattle pans out. My fingers are crossed.

NO WAY NO WAY NO DANG FRIGGIN' WAY!

Dear Vanessa,

Congratulations! You have been selected to receive a prize in the Coraline Nike Dunks Giveaway, administered by ePrize.

You have been selected as the winner of one (1) pair of Custom Coraline Nike Dunk tennis shoes (size determined by shoe size requested during entry or random drawing )!

I just exhausted my excitable screaming for now. Thank you Lucky Friday the 13th!

I loved the movie (how could I not?? Henry Selick, TMBG, stop-motion animation, John Hodgman, tons of brilliant artists and animators I sort of follow in a not-creepy-at-all-way, I COULD GO ON) and spent ages exploring its website. It was through lucky chance that I came across the entrance form (and remembered the code word, which I thought was just an inside joke).

Imagine my surprise when I found this message in my inbox! For those keeping track of notifications across the Internet, I live in California, and I got the notice at 10 o'clock this morning.

According to the email, I should be getting these beautiful shoes in 8-10 weeks. I just hope that they fit!

On the way home from school today, exhausted beyond belief and wallowing in the annals of L.A. public transportation, I tried to drown out the noise (and the urge to sleep or scream) with a podcast.

In the split second I glanced down to adjust the volume, the entire right side of the bus jumped the curb and propelled us roughly toward the left side. The jolt was not strong enough to send people flying, but people shouted out, cursing collectively, stretching out arms and grabbing hold of the seats in front of them or else clutching their belongings. The bus came to a halt in front of its regular stop, and it dawned on the crowd what had just happened.

"Ohh noo! My neck!" someone joked, and soon the passengers were roaring with laughter.

The next stop was mine, and I left feeling like I'd brushed against something precious. What was only a moment before a rank and stuffy metal box filled with tired, hungry, silent people had turned into a little piece of humanity. I prepared to board my second bus, without the earbuds in this time. Who knows what I might miss.

Little things.

Your photograph is on the Internet.

It doesn't matter whether or not you have a Facebook account. It doesn't matter that you deleted your MySpace when it made you look like a tool. It doesn't matter if you thumb your nose at the Internet altogether -- your face is out there.

Creepy as it sounds, our generation is pretty much conditioned to accept a certain lack of personal privacy. We've all heard the ranting stories about people losing their jobs over their online activities, and we've listened to the dire warnings that emerge from these stories with the same yawning brush-off we give to preachers of similar messages. We get it. Don't drink and drive. Smoking is bad for you. The Internet is forever. Insert eye roll.

I would shrug it off as sensationalist myself, except for the fact that IT IS ENTIRELY TRUE. Check out what Sean Tevis, a 39-year-old Kansas House of Representatives hopeful, had to deal with during his November bid for a seat. He lost. Granted, he's a Democrat, and he ran against a long-standing conservative incumbent. But his opponent actually chose to dig silly photos out of Tevis' friends' profiles and mail them to voters.

What will our generation have to cope with when we're up for running the country? Just how far does our online persona reach? The Internet never forgets. The Internet is vengeful. And it is a bigger, more in-depth part of our lives with each successive year.

Try to think of every group event you've been to, and imagine the possibilities.

We shouldn't have to clean up our online presence to cover up what we choose to do in our own time. We shouldn't have to watch what we put on our status messages or refrain from posing in front of a monument while making silly faces. But until we can develop better protections against the use of our online lives to determine our employment or enrollment status, we need to try, at the very least, to moderate what gets onto the Intertubes.

Aw yiss!
Look what I got from the Student Life office the other day!

I find this use of Associated Students resources absolutely beyond reproach. I don't know why AS decided that giving me free peanut M&M's with a slightly unsettling message sticker'd onto it would increase "AS visibility," but damn it if I'm complaining. This is why we pay our Student Activity Fees! (That and, you know, all those discounts, scholarships, clubs, what have you.)

Yes. I know. Just open the bag and drown yourself in 250 calories of nutty chocolate goodness before it sinks in.

Also, my apologies for not posting this yesterday. I have a habit of saving drafts and leaving 'em there.

EDIT: The title of this post refers to the second of these Kate Beaton comics! Yes, the first comic refers to mounties, but it's about real mounties on account of Kate Beaton is a Canadian from Canada. She also does awesome/hilarious webcomics (often about history) here.

Why is it that, when the time of class dismissal is near, mounties in all my classes -- current and previous -- fidget and pack up even when the professor is still talking? I haven't seen this kind of behavior since my early days at Alhambra High, and even then it was thoroughly mocked by the seniors, who were allegedly more mature than we lowly freshmen. Seriously, though -- what could be of so much importance that you would lop off a lecture and show such disrespect?

Note: I have never seen this travesty in my life
I get the slightest inkling that this restlessness is universal, especially among my generation. We've always got to be doing something. I've seen people last maybe ... 45 minutes, tops, before bouncing their leg up and down. I can see the inner battle ensue behind their eyes when, as if their bodies are moving beyond control, they reach for their cell phones.

Then there's the concept of dismissal. It reminds me of runners at the starting block. It's like we've been so thoroughly conditioned to jump up and do something at the sound of a dismissal bell that part of our silly institution-loving brains itches for it, for that magic minute. We must zip up our bags, shut our books, yank out our text-messaging devices and DASH FOR THE SWING SET!!!

Ohmigod if Brittanya wins I will kill myself!!!!!!
... seriously, though, guys. Grow the hell up. We're paying to be educated by professionals in their field who are there to teach us. The least we can do is pause to listen to what they have to say at the close of class.

Addendum: holy moly I actually googled Brittanya and now I want to gouge out my eyes

guys

just ... just take it easy on the reality TV okay

It's Daylight Saving Time (DST) starting March 8, so set your clocks forward one hour tonight.

Another hour of sleep lost to the arrogance of man. If there is no actual energy savings during DST, why not just come out and change motherflippin' business hours to reflect the shift in daylight? No way, man. WE'RE GOING TO CHANGE TIME ITSELF.

I'd move somewhere this insanity isn't upheld, but the About.com page regarding Arizona's choice to be in Mountain Standard Time after PST springs forward ends on this snarky note:

In Arizona, we just don't need another hour of sunlight!

Final tip: It is NOT Daylight Savings time--there's no "s" after Saving. It's Daylight Saving Time, singular.

So. I see where things lie. Time-shifting aside, I'll quote Lucille Bluth on this one: I'd rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona.

According to the L.A. Times, it looks like the California State Supreme Court is leaning toward upholding Prop 8, but allowing the 18,000 gay couples who got married before its passage to stay married. The L.A. Times has a heart-wrenching article about those 18,000 couples and their strange new position as some of the few inhabitants of "marriage islands."

The Court has been debating the constitutionality of Proposition 8, the November initiative that banned gay marriage. Prop 8 passed with 52% of the vote; the debate lies in whether the initiative was an amendment or a revision. A revision requires a 2/3 vote from the state legislature before appearing on a ballot; an amendment does not.

In the interest of full disclosure, I voted "no" in November. I'm straight. But I'm also equal parts Mexican, Salvadorian, and American. And it makes me sick that this huge group of people who have done nothing but be born gay -- in the same way I have been born with a minority status -- are arbitrarily denied such a private and profound right.

I call bullshit on the concept of "protecting" or "restoring the definition of" marriage. The only impact gay marriage would have is that gays would get married. It's simple bigotry that passed Prop 8; that and sheer ignorance.



The fact is, domestic partnerships create a separate, and, despite even the best intentions for equality, lesser-perceived class of people based on an unchangeable aspect of their existence. Homosexuality is shown in more and more studies to be more about genetics and biology than about choice.

Those who say that homosexuality is inherently wrong an abomination or that it is "not natural" because gay couples are not "fruitful" are committing the Naturalistic Fallacy. You can't apply moral values to nature. "Natural" is just too subjective a term; given this logic, infertile heterosexual couples (who through sheer biology cannot exchange DNA to form children) are also unnatural, and therefore their sexual relationship is morally wrong ... yet their marriage is still recognized by the state government.

Separate but equal was ruled unconstitutional in the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling in Brown vs Board of education., an admittedly different issue altogether, but eerily echoing the same sentiments. Then there's 1970's Loving vs. Virginia decision from the Supreme Court, which said that:




There are a number of reasons domestic partnerships are not on the same footing with marriage. If both were equal except in name, it would make sense to eliminate one or the other for the government's purposes. If all couples -- gay and straight -- were civil unions under the law and marriages under whatever churches they preferred, we wouldn't have this problem. But it's much easier to make a change where a precedent has already been set because everyone in government and civilian life is clear on what "marriage" means.

I only hope that the history we're making now will be viewed in the harshest light possible. There is no excuse for discrimination under the law.

I take the L.A. Metro every day -- four buses -- to get to and from Mt. SAC from Alhambra. As such, I get to observe the latest headphone trends firsthand, seeing as most of my classmates spend the uncomfortable commute determinedly not looking at each other and fiddling with their iPods.

In the fall, there was a brief explosion of neon bright gummy earbuds. It was suddenly a faux pas to be using the iconic white earbuds that came with one's iPod.

Then everyone realized that not only were these earbuds of poor quality, but that they looked idiotic (although entertainingly rainbow-y!) when seen together in large numbers. Thus the new trend solution for true uniqueness: skullcandy. I didn't mind; these were more pleasing to look at, even if they're low-quality, high-priced accessories. I minded my own business. I determinedly looked away. THEN IT HAPPENED.


I saw someone wearing these.

And it happened again. And again. Once in red. Then in cream. Then more green ones.

THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I've been looking for those headphones in powder blue for TWO YEARS. I know they're cheaply made, and I know they're overpriced, an' I know they're discontinued, but I want them. You see ... they are adorable.


This sucks.

Whelp, I don't have the money or the patience to wait for Panasonic to realize it has made a terrible mistake in discontinuing the blue-ies. For now I'll have to stick to the Pixxo earbuds I bought for $5 at Fry's. The irony? They're white, so I look like I have an iPod. I actually have a crappy refurbished Samsung YP-K3 mp3 player.

For now there seems to be a mellowing out of earbud trends. Perhaps to better reflect the beleaguered economy, most people I see are sporting black ones.

Greetings, earth humans!

My name is Vanessa, and I attend Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, CA. I'm writing this blog as a part of my new position as a reporter on the Mountaineer, the community college newspaper.

You can expect this blog to cover many things outside the scope of the Mountaineer and more in line with my own reflections on current events in politics and odd or local news.

The title of this blog refers to the alarming phenomenon of jerking awake just before sleep. As an 18-year-old who has a terrible sleep schedule, I experience this often. Very often. And seeing as I just found out what they are called (thanks, reddit!), I have no choice but to put it here.

The URL, blatantwinkingsmiley, refers to Poe's Law, which states that

Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing.

Yes, it says Fundamentalism, but I use Poe's Law in a broader sense.

In an increasingly far-flung world, it has become harder and harder to distinguish sincerity from malicious mockery in all kinds of debates. One of my communicative interests lies in the ability (or inability) to fully express one's psychological intentions through writing alone, especially on Internet. I find these failures to communicate hilarious. Blatantwinkingsmiley also serves to remind me that I need to make a conscious effort to keep my sarcasm at a minimum lest I push anyone into disbelief, no matter how freakin' funny the response may be.

Here's hoping for a good long blog run.