"Our Songs Are Sing-Along Songs"

Only a little over a week to go in summer school. Lord knows I'm ready for the break now (and I have to spend my weekend writing progress notes. AND I have to attend a wedding. Mine is truly a charmed life).

Michelle and I have been sucked into a few new things over the past week:

(1) Twitter. It's like instant messaging with lots of people, which is groovy.

(2) Eureka, the quirky, whimsical show on the Sci-Fi Channel. Reminds me a lot of Gail Simone's Welcome to Tranquility comic, and anything reminiscent of Gail Simone's work is okay by me.

Tried getting into Burn Notice because of the Bruce Campbell involvement, but the couple of episodes I've seen of that did not impress. The main character (who isn't Bruce. How can he be in a TV show and NOT be the main character? It's a travesty) is too generic and cookie-cutter, the dialog has no real life to it (and most people's delivery in the show is nothing short of atrocious), and Bruce just isn't in the show enough. I think if the show were more focused on him, it'd be worth watching, but I'm just a big Bruce Campbell fan (there's always re-watching Jack of All Trades and The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., which I for some reason don't own).

In other news, my parents keep sending me politically-conservative email forwards. I kinda want to call them up and scream, "I'm a liberal! I don't think taxes are bad! I don't think war is good! And you can take your hillbilly interpretation of the 2nd Amendment and blow it out your ass!" But I can't do that, because I am a polite and well-mannered son.

Oh, and the new Hold Steady album is pretty awesome. I've seen reviews comparing it to Bruce Springsteen's The Wild, The Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle (my least-favorite Bruce album, and the one that I never listen to except for "Rosalita"). I guess you could say it's like E Street Shuffle...if that album had kicked off with "Rosalita," and then played more songs like that for the rest of the album. So yeah, nothing like E Street Shuffle, really.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: The Hold Steady, "Constructive Summer"

"I Used To Be Disgusted"

I find myself becoming increasingly frustrated with some of my students in summer school. Their lack of effort or motivation, their willful disregard of rules and instructions, their tendency to just do...well, nothing. It's all getting to me. I'd say I need a break, but I know there's only two weeks left and that I can make it that long.

Still, it's difficult some days during summer school to remind myself why I enjoy teaching. I don't have that problem during the regular school year, but that's probably because I'm teaching history then and I feel more in my element.

Finally got my updated GMU transcript this morning and delivered it to the Powers That Be (PTB) at the other school so we can get my full teaching license. For those who don't know the story, one of my classes wasn't showing up on my transcript. I called about it, and they said they had to file something called retro-enrollment papers to get it added back, and that it was all on their end and I just had to sit back and wait a couple of weeks for it to appear on my unofficial transcript. Well, a month passed, and no word. I called back and discovered that, since the class was more than a year old, the Dean's Office had to send a memo to the Vice Provost's Office to get it approved, then it had to be sent back to the Dean's Office, who would then send it on to the Registrar, who would finally put the class on my transcript. That took another month. It should've taken a week, tops, even with the inherent lack of communication between departments that you find at universities. I mean, I'd've walked the damn paperwork back and forth across campus if it'd have got the stuff done faster.

But now it's taken care of, and I should have my official license from the PTB in a few weeks (give or take). Hurray!

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Elvis Costello, "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes"

Where'd I leave the torch and pitchfork?

Michelle pointed me towards this article about a recent diatribe by syndicated whackjob Micahel Savage. Calling autism a "fraud" just reveals how ignorant the man actually is.

And while we're at it, what's with the whole rant about gender essentialism? Seriously, teaching young men to actually give two tugs about how other people feel makes them weak? What? How is not treating everyone like they were subhuman a bad thing?

I swear to God, if he invokes the 1950s as some sort of nostalgic golden age, when men were men and women kept their mouths shut and cooked, I may have to commit a hate crime.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Don Henley, "Dirty Laundry"

Too Quiet

Without Michelle around, it's too quiet. I'm starting to get kinda lonely, and it's only been a day.

It's gonna be a long week.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: My Morning Jacket, "I'm Amazed"

Squeeee!

Chrono Trigger? Chrono Trigger.

Looks like it's coming out in Japan in Winter 2008, so we can expect it sometime next year? God, I hope so. A port of the Trigger would be glorious.

I know SquareEnix is just trying to profit off our nostalgia by repackaging games that're over a decade old, but I think it says something about how high the quality of those games was that I still shell out the cash to buy them again.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Chrono Trigger, "Brink of Time"

"All By Myself"

Michelle's out of town for the week up in New York City, visiting her family. I'm thus left here to my own devices. The house is rather dark and quiet, just me and the cats. I've only got one light, my computer, and the TV/DVD on.

Next week I head out to Oklahoma for a few days. I really need to play the guitar quite a bit before I head out, because otherwise my fingers are not going to make it when we do the big family singalong at my uncle's birthday party. Even if I play for an hour or two every night, though, I'm pretty sure this is gonna be rough on 'em.

Summer school continues well. Kinda wish I could just laze about all day, doing nothing, but that ain't gonna happen.

The cats are getting into the crazy period of the evening where they run circles around the living room and claw at things (the furniture, the walls, me). My only hope is that they'll calm down by the time I go to bed.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Rancid, "Time Bomb"

"I'm On Fire"

I have some rather unpleasant heartburn this morning. It woke me up at 4:30 and never really let me get back to sleep. That sucks.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Charlie Sexton, "Burn"