On the True Importance of Twitter

While not quite the technological revolution that many predicted it would be (yet), the Twitter event is clearly more than ephemeral - hell, even retrograde luddites like me are on it. I realize that Twitter has been an increasingly useful mechanism for relating news, ranging from reports in Iran during protests last year to people spreading the word on political stories via Twitter. That said, I'm pretty sure the best function of Twitter is posts like this:

So glad to be awake and out of my dream where I was in an arranged marriage with Frank Zappa, where my only joy was playing saxophone.

Critics have accused Twitter of being narcissistic, an overload of private information, and trivial. Perhaps it is, but when triviality can offer images as awesome as the one above, I'm all for it.

For the record...

There is no better combo than a cup of coffee and the Boredoms' Vision Creation Newsun to get you going in the morning.

The Worst Dream I've Had Since I Took Comps

I don't usually share such things, but last night, at some point in my dream sequence, I decided to go see a shrink, so I went to the only psychoanalyst my union allowed (in the dream). I had no idea who it was - there was mystery all about it - and when I went into the office and lay down, my therapist was.....

...John Boehner. And the doors were locked, so I couldn't leave.

There's nothing quite like waking up in terror.

Celebrities - the New Hippies When It Comes to Names

I'm all for trying to curb the overpopulation of the world, and I think not letting celebrities have kids is a great place to start. After all, if they're going to try to be all "cutesy" and "clever" by naming their kids after fruit or "Pilot inspektor" or, now, "Bronx Mowgli," then they clearly have nothing to contribut to humanity in terms of the gene pool. Honestly...how dumb do you have to be to not only name your kid after one of New York City's 5 boroughs (when neither of you ever even lived there), but to name it after the one that's home to the Yankees! Truly, celebrities should be among the first ones out of the gene pool.

Random Anecdotes from Mindless Surfing While at Work

So, I was surfing the tubes today, and typed in the address to visit our good friends over at Lawyers, Guns & Money. However, my fingers, in their flurry of typing, got their timing off, and instead of typing "lefarkins.blogspot.com," I ended up typing "lefarkins.blogpsot.com" (getting my "p" and "s" in the "blogspot" reversed). Having mis-typed, it didn't just re-direct me to a "page not found" site. Instead, I got this.

So my question to our good friends at LG&M and throughout the internet is, are they aware of this crass exploitation of their site name among those who can't spell? And if so, which of them has a degree from said site?

....UPDATE: Acting on what Venha Futuro said in the comments, I did a little more (3-second) investigating, and apparently, it's not just LG&M that has this problem (note the address on the new link). So, Erik...you pursuing another backup degree, just in case crazy evangelicals end up outnumbering college students? I'm sure "I Need Jesus," "7 Seals, Trumpets, Vials," "Revival - Is It Coming?," "Abortion," and "Antichrist" Parts 1 AND 2 would all be valuable for the future.

Things Mr. Trend Hates

So, I proposed a panel for a conference to be held here in New York City in November back in March. I waited and waited, but never heard back from the organizer of the panel. In July, I informally heard from somebody involved in the conference that the panel had been approved, but I never heard anything official about any aspect of the conference, despite several attempts to get somebody to tell me anything. Having heard nothing, and not having any commentator on the panel we put together, I figured I would work on this paper, and have it finished about 2 weeks before the conference, leaving me enough time to tinker if I had to.

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I heard from the organizer of this conference, letting me know that we did in fact get approved (good to know, after five months of waiting and only two months before the conference). He additionally decided that it would be a good idea to mention that the participants are to circulate their papers around prior to the conference, and asked if our panel's papers could be finished by early October. So instead of having another 2 months to write (as I thought I did), I now have one, primarily because somebody decided to wait for months to let us know anything about the conference.

Suffice to say, blogging from me will be light for the next month or so.

Saturday Night in Erik Land

Tonight, I am sitting in front of my computer sort of working on an article.

But this is totally different than most of my Saturday nights...

My New Favorite Humor Site

Following in the great steps of "Joe Mathlete Explains Today's Marmaduke in 500 Words or Less" and the "Nietzsche Family Circus" comes "Garfield minus Garfield," a new bizarre comics-based site to occupy my time. What's somewhat remarkable is A) how truly sad and existentially depressing Jon Arbuckle is, and B) how much funnier Garfield is without Garfield. Check it out.

An Apology/Regular Blogging to Resume Soon

I aplogize to our readers (all 15 of you) for having not blogged more this week. There's been plenty of things going on I've wanted to comment about, but fortunately, I got a new job this week; unfortunately, I had to start training while finishing my old job, so I was working double and just didn't have much time for writing. Fairly regular blogging from me should resume this weekend or early next week. I apologize. And if you came here because I was writing less, well, prepare to be disappointed.

Monographs

I teach at a school that assigns more than the average amount of reading. That's fine. Each of my 3 courses gets 5 or 6 books that we spend a day discussing in addition to articles and chapters many other days. But once or twice a semester, I have multiple monographs to read the same day that I have not read.

Tomorrow is one of those days. I am enjoying the books very much. One is Ari Kelman's A River and Its City: The Nature of Landscape in New Orleans, for my Hurricane Katrina course. For my labor course, I am reading Kevin Boyle's The UAW and the Heyday of American Liberalism, 1945-1968.

The problem is that I am too shortsighted to make sure I don't do this to myself. I could have brought one or both with me on Spring Break, but of course I didn't look at the syllabus. So now I am forced to finish both tonight. I'm almost done with the Kelman but I've only read the first 2 chapters of the Boyle.

Just in case you all were wondering what my life has been like this semester and why I have continued to not blog. Good times.

A New Year's Resolution of Sorts

2007 was a pretty good year for me personally, even if it sucked for the world. It ended strong too. Oregon beat the hell out of South Florida in the Sun Bowl, salvaging a lost season. I also finished writing the introduction to my dissertation, which means that I only have revisions from this point on.

I went to a friend's house last night. Had a great time. But I decided to get on their scale. That put a slight damper on my general happiness. Somehow, I am up to 215 lbs. I don't know how that happened. I mean, I eat too much and don't exercise, but it's not like that's getting any worse. I don't think I look worse, though that's not for me to say I guess. Just don't know what the sudden gain of 8 or 10 lbs. comes from. But it's not good. Really rather unacceptable.

So I decided to start exercising this morning. While I was running, I realized that it is New Year's. I don't believe in New Year's resolutions, but since by chance this happened to start on New Year's, well, what the hell. I really want to get down to 190-195, but we can start with 200. If I can lose 10-15 lbs. this year, that would be awesome. Of course, it gets a lot harder to want to exercise in Texas when the weather gets hot, i.e. February. But we'll see what happens then. I guess I could use the school gym, but I'm a little weirded out working out around my students. I could also pay to go somewhere, but the only thing worse than exercising is paying to exercise.

So sure, this is my New Year's resolution. I guess.

To counteract this lame resolution, I also resolve to listen to more Edgar Varese.