In this world, THE KIDS ARE INSANE!!

I got a call from my dad yesterday. It was sort of a surreal conversation. Suffice it to say, the upshot was that he was offered a job, which he took. The job was as president of a university. I shouldn't say which one; my dad says that he was given the job isn't public yet and although you guys aren't exactly reporters for Higher Education Gossip Weekly, I should keep it quiet. In any event, the important thing is that the university is a scant 1 and 1/2 hour drive from San Diego. That's right. He's comin' out this-a-way.

Strange. Strange strange strange. I mean, in one sense, it'll be nice to have him out here. It'll be nice to have family in the area. Turns out he's getting one hell of a nice house out of the deal, so it'll be nice to have somewhere to go to visit, a retreat, if you will, to finish my thesis. But on the other hand, it's so weird. This is my state. This is my part of the country. He's trapsing all over my turf. Now, all of a sudden, it's his turf too. Now add to that all the stuff about me being slightly annoyed at him for divorcing my mom after 30-odd years of marriage and shacking up with a whole 'nother family, it's just going to be a surreal experience.

I like his new family. The girls are really really nice. His new wife is, after you get past the layers of sugar, a nice enough person to be around. It's just weird.

I'm already slated to be taking care of his kids while he's gone. Well, not really taking care of, per se, but you know, watching the place. Since he's going to be travelling a lot, I'll be on call quite a bit, I imagine.

Urg.

Come and get one in the yarbles, if ya' got any yarbles!!

Took a day off today. That is to say, I took a day off today. There may be other people in the world who also took a day off today, but I was referring to just one of them. Me. Had a nice breakfast of bagles, coffee, and cream cheese. Normally I don't get cream cheese on breakfast bagles but, well, today was a day off, so why the hell not? I went over to La Jolla to try to find a non-crappy coffeeshop with free wireless. Found a non-crappy coffeeshop. No wireless. Pisser. Let me prephrase: wicked pisser.

As I was driving today, I saw one of those ironic scenes you expect to hear retold only in lame standup comedic routines. The guy in the car in front of me was really pissed off about something, he was clearly screaming at the woman who was in the passenger seat. At one point he was so animated that he actually honked his horn accidentally as he was flailing around. This would not have been particularly amusing were it not for the ad in his rearview window that said: "If you're upset or angry, you lose! Spiritual Health Tai Chi Centers - 858-555-1234."

Then I came home and did a little spring cleaning and wrote a few pages. Had some fried catfish and red beans and rice for dinner. That sounds like quite an accomplishment, but really it just involved a) putting the New Orleans (tm) red beans and rice packet in boiling water; b) coating the fish in pre-packaged New Orleans (tm) Seafood Fry Coating; c) frying fish. Yummy, nonetheless.

Maybe I'll buy an iPod tomorrow. Tomorrow, after all, is another potential day off.

The radio to heaven will be wired to your purse.

I was restless last night. Got home at around six or so, decided to do a little cleaning (which angered a group of fruit flies that had camped in the trash area; talk about pleasant). Part of my restlessness was just that I hadn't been home that early in a long time and I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. Generally speaking I would just go work on one of the songs I had brewing, but I currently have none brewing. The other part of my restlessness was my internal conflict over the possibility of buying an iPod. In one sense, I really want one. I mean, everybody else has one. I don't have any sort of music player that I can use on planes, while walking to school, etc. But on the other hand, I just don't need it at all. The cheapest one is something like $180 (with the educational discount), and that's still a lot of money. Eventually I decided that if I'm going to get one, I'm going to get the good one, the white 20gig one. But there's still the question of whether I wanna pay $270 for an mp3 player that I probably won't be using all that much.

So to get over my restlessness I took a drive in my rented Mitsubishi Lancer and went to Best Buy to check out iPods and iPod accessories. Some nice stuff they got. But I wasn't really able to play with them very much; the crowd surrounding that stuff was getting larger by the minute. So I walked around and looked at CDs; going there reminded me of being in Des Moines - Best Buy just seemed to be a sort of destination when we were bored. So I found Elvis Costello's My Aim is True at a reasonable price and bought it. After that, I came home and worked on the introduction to my dissertation. Hah! Dissertation. Say it with me: "d i s s e r t a t i o n."

Then he took and he ate up all of my corn.

I finally figured out why it's good to be advanced. Rather than saying:

"I'm working on my prospects."

I can say:

"I'm working on my dissertation."

Smooth.

Better run run run run run run run away.

Music is bad.

Er, I don't mean music as a class - music, in itself, is not bad. I mean that, generally speaking, music is bad. Some music is good. Most music, on the other hand, is bad. And it's getting worse, too. Yesterday I was in my car listening to one of the few tolerable radio stations in San Diego (one that sometimes plays tunes I used to hear on 105.9 in high school). After hearing "Tommy the Cat" by Primus (a song I never really liked all that much), they played this pretty rockin' song. I vaguely remembered it from my high school days, but couldn't really place it.

ME
This is pretty rockin'. Not too bad, I have to say.

After the song was over, a few more played, and the DJ comes back on and tells me that after Primus, they played "Mother" by Danzig.

DANZIG?!?!?!

The same Danzig that I actively made fun of people for liking in HS? The same band that I actively disparaged, the one that, if it came on 105.9, I would turn the radio off?

Apparently.

There are only two explanations for my reaction to the song as it was played last night. First, that my preferences in music have so radically changed since high school that my current self would be ridiculed by my past self for thinking the song was "not too bad". This explanation has some credence. Don't we all think that the people we've become would have been ridiculed by past temporal stages of ourselves at some point? Don't we all get a little lamer, even by our own previous standards? Perhaps, but I think there's a better explanation. The better explanation is that "not too bad" is a relative predicate. When I said "Not too bad" last night, I really meant, "not too bad, considering all the other crap that's on the radio now." Music has gotten so bad, that I actually think that a song I would actively disparage people for listening to in better times is "not too bad". This is a sad, sad, sorry statement.

Why Matt Barr is going to kill me.

Hey all. I'm very close to finished with a cover version of the Police's "Bring on the Night". Matt Barr's gonna hate me. It was fun for me, though, the guitar parts are fun to play, and I have a lot of harmony stuff going on throughout the song. It's a tough one to mix, though, so it probably won't be up until later tonight (on the Castrato page for your listening enjoyment). In the end, I'm not really sure why I did it, other than its status as a song I like, and one I could play. The other cool thing is the tone on the solo guitar I got goin' on in the last 30 or so bars of the song. Very 1970s Tangerine Dream. Anyway, for those of you who are bored with my horrible songs, don't bother, but if you're at all interested in how I spend my spare time, there ya' go.

Procrastination Station and the Heroes of Star Wars III.

I thought Star Wars III was exceptionally good. Wonderful, even. Absolutely dark (dark beyond my expectations). I won't go into any spoilers for those of you who haven't seen it, but it was quite a remarkable achievement. It's clunky in places, but no more so than any of the previous Star Wars installments, even the original trilogy. Every Star Wars movie has a little bit of crappy dialog, a couple of wierd scenes. This one's no different, but it's definitely more poignant. Well done, George. Don't ever make another one.

I went to pick up my rental car today, and it's actually pretty nice. It's some kind of Mitsubishi, but I'm getting it at far under my per diem from the other insurance company, so that's good. All I have to pay for is gas and for repairs if I happen to crash into a tree. Hopefully that won't happen, because I neglected to purchase the insurance, which was like $9 a day. Screw that.

I'm currently avoiding grading. I only have three papers to go, but lemme tell ya', these things are SO BAD. Absolutely incoherent. I've never graded a more wretched hive of ungrammatical sentences and textual misunderstanding. I mean, let's just take an example. There are many different ways to acceptably say "X says: '...'". For example, "Michael says that Coke is better than Pepsi." "Michael states that Coke is better than Pepsi." "Michael writes that Coke is better than Pepsi." "Michael argues that..." "Michael suggests that..." "Michael contends that...," etc. How, then, does a student say "Michael constructs that Coke is better than Pepsi."???? CONSTRUCTS? What is he doing, building a bridge? "Expresses" also gets my goat. He's not doing an interpretive dance, here. There are a hundred examples. Why can't students use words commensurate with their meaning? Why must there be reinterpretation of words that have perfectly entrenched definitions? This is annoying, partly because it's an obvious ploy by the student to sound clever without actually paying the price of writing clearly and making interesting points. Annoying in the extreme. I'm going to tear them a new one on Monday. Just like Darth Vader and Luke and how Darth Vader tore, er, Luke, er, a new...hand? You know what I mean.

I wanna do this in a way so as not to offend or unnerve.

I advanced to candidacy today. In fact, about ten minutes ago.

DALE'S FRIEND
What does that mean?

DALE
That means I'm now a Ph.D. candidate.

DF
Weren't you before? I mean, weren't you in a Ph.D. program?

D
I was, but before I was a mere graduate student. Now I'm a Ph.D. candidate.

DF
Well, what's the difference? What makes you so bloody awesome?

D
My advisors just approved my dissertation topic.

DF
Didn't they do that already, like, last year?

D
Well, yeah, but this time it's official.

DF
So before it was just unofficial? What does that mean?

D
Well, you know, forms and all that.

DF
So you're getting all excited because you get to fill out forms?

D
SHUT UP!

DF
You know, I'm really just you masquerading as the voice of some miscellaneous 'friend'.

D
SHUT UP SHUT UP!

DF
I mean, I don't even have a name. I'm just labeled as 'friend'. Do you think your actual friends just name themselves as a function of being your friend?

D
Well, don't they?

Thrills and Chills and Daffodils.

Man, I need to jazz this thing up. I need to get some interesting posts. Looking back over the last ten or so, there aren't any that really stick out as being that quintessential aristic work that go into many of my previous efforts. I'm rededicating myself. I was going to rant about the final episode of "The Bachelor", and it's general shittiness (no showdown between Charlie and the two girls; they were told independently; how stupid!). Not today. Not gonna' phone it in today. I won't have a drink, 'til "Update" is through, that's my promise to you, the thosewhodig readeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrr!

God, it's sunny out. The air is clear. The birds are singing. The rampant and disgusting smog is barely visable to the east, south, and north. And I'm feelin' fine because I just got a call from 21st Century Insurance, the upshot of which is that the person who hit me actually does have insurance after all and I can get a rental car! BOO-YEAH!! Not all is right with the world, but I'm feeling better than I was yesterday. This rental car thing is especially good because it turns out my car is going to be in the shop for three weeks. Three freakin' weeks!

Riding the bus to school has been interesting, though generally unpleasant. For some reason, Cowboy Jim is always on the bus with me. He's extended his route, though, apparently. He used to ride only one stop. Now he rides all the way to the mall near campus. Still wears the same vinyl black cowboy hat, though.

I talked to my mother a few nights back and it was a bit of an interesting conversation. My mom is so worldly these days; she always wants to know if I'm seeing someone (questions I've been successfully dodging going on two years), and she has a really healthy perspective on things. The one shitty thing is that the president of Baker University (in my hometown) is retiring, which means they'll be looking for a new one. And since my dad was such a BMOC back when he was dean, it's likely they'll be interested in him. Hopefully he turns them down, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he won't. If he interviews there I'm going to tear him a new one; it just would be too tough for my mom to take. She said she'd have to move, but I'm not going to sit here and have her move. That would be the last straw as far as I'm concerned.

Ok, Ok. So this post was a little fragmented. You gotta work into these things. It's possible I may have started drinking before "Update" was through. So go screw yourself.

Revenge of the Sisyphus.

I'm excited about the new Star Wars movie. It's been awhile since I've been this excited for one. I wasn't even really all that excited about the release of The Phantom Menace. I mean, I went to see it and all that, and was mildly excited, but nothing like this. After the major letdown that was embodied by the First Episode, I pretty much forgot that Episode II was coming out. But then the week before, I made sure that I was going to completely hate the movie by reading a bunch of reviews over the course of the week.

This time, I'm not reading anything.

Except the A. O. Scott review in the NY Times, which I read today. Apparently he, and most of the other critics on Rotten Tomatoes, think this is the best one since The Empire Strikes Back. That's high praise. Scott even says it's better than the original Star Wars. Since I always thought the original Star Wars was better than Empire, that's high praise, indeed.

It's odd, though. The thing that I liked so much about the original Star Wars movies, and part of the reason that I didn't like the new ones, was that there was a playfulness about the first two, a buckling of swash. The Han Solo-essness of the first trilogy was completely lacking. No more wit, no more bravado. The new ones just seemed to take themselves so freakin' seriously. And this seems to be a trend that started with the special editions of the old movies. Recall:

OLD VERSION:

[Han Solo leaning over Sarlacc pit. Lando struggles to free himself from Sarlacc tentacle.]

LANDO
Wait, wait! I thought you were blind!

SOLO
It's alright. Trust me.

You can just see Han Solo giving you a knowing wink. Now here's the special edition.

[Han Solo leaning over Sarlacc pit. Lando struggles to free himself from Sarlacc tentacle.]

LANDO
Wait, wait! I thought you were blind!

SOLO
It's alright. I can see a lot better now.

Ugh. Totally lifeless. But it seems to me that it's impossible that the Third Episode will regain any of that bravura. In fact, it seems likely to go in the opposite direction completely. But hey, if it's good, it's good, right?

Which brings me to my next point.

I'm advancing to candidacy on Friday. Which means I'm seeing the movie Friday night. Not Wednesday. Which means if ANY OF YOU FUCKERS say ANYTHING about the movie in front of me until I've seen it, I'm going postal. Ultra-postal. Uber-postal. More postal than which cannot be conceived. You know that scene from Casino where Robert DeNiro asks the guy if it's his pen, and the guy tells him to shove it up his ass, and Joe Pesci comes over and starts stabbing the guy in the neck with the pen over and over? That's me. To you. You're "the guy". I'm "Joe Pesci". And instead of telling my friend to shove it up his ass, it's sitting on my desk and you're saying anything about Star Wars. That's right. I think.

Would you let me wash your hair? Could I make you breakfast sometime?

The hits just keep on coming. Got a call yesterday night from my insurance company, and apparently the person who hit me actually has no insurance. No freakin' insurance. That means that I'm going to have to go through my insurance company, pay the freakin' deductible, not get a rental car, and take the bus to school every day for the next few weeks. FUCK! They said they were going to sic collection agencies on this woman so I would at least get my deductible back, but I'm still going to be without a car for several weeks, most likely. This is precisely not what I needed right now.

Strangely enough, however, I'm a little stoic today. I don't think it's really sunk in yet. I did get a little good news today, I'm officially going to be taking fellowship and departmental TAships for next year, rather than having to work in the writing programs. Thank God. I've taught in the writing programs for two years now and I'm ready to be done. If all goes well, I'll be in the department next year, the following year, and then I'll be teaching somewhere the year after that. If all goes well.

Tomorrow I'm giving a paper at a little mini-conference here on a paper by Robert Pippin. It'll be interesting I think. Mostly I just hope my paper is not a total waste of time. I'm going last, though, so I'm going to try to jazz up my presentation a little bit so people aren't falling off to sleep. I'll probably do my pace-back-and-forth-and-yell-a-little-bit routine that seems to work well for me. I'll say lots of incendiary things about poor people and our obligations to them, and it'll be a happ'nin' good time. And I heard that lunch was going to be awesome.

Can't you see it's misery and torture for me?

The Honda Civic Car-Crash-o-Meter rolled over from '1' to '2' today. As I was driving down my little street to go to school, some moron in a Saturn pulled out from her parking lot right into my passenger side. This, of course, was obviously not my fault - but she comes tearing out of her car accusing me of speeding. This accusation was a) irrelevant, because I had the right of way and b) false, given that the person who pulled out right before her I thought was pulling out a little too close, causing me to slow way down. Anyway, I had a witness, so screw her.

Ugh. The car is (barely) drivable, though I really shouldn't be driving it, lest any more damage befall my poor Civic. Luckily my insurance company is going to start a claim for me with her insurance company and I'll be able to get a rental car while mine is being fixed. This tops off a shitty week. What could possibly happen to screw this week up any more? Don't answer that.

I watched "The Conversation" last night. It had been a few years since I'd seen it. Very good. But I think I was somewhat less moved by it this time - I think the slowdown in the middle section of the film is a little distracting. Coppola could have put together an incredibly tight thriller had he lopped off that middle section where they go back to his shop to party, or if they would have eliminated the seemingly pointless love story with Teri Garr. I mean, I suppose you have to establish that Harry Caul is this really really private guy, but I don't see how we don't already know that - you could keep the stuff back at his shop about the Teamsters' job, but just cut the other meandering stuff. That would have improved the movie, I think. But all things considered, a great example of a 70's paranoia movie. Other good examples are "Three Days of the Condor", "The Parallax View" (although I'm not super-wild about this one), "Capricorn One", etc.

Crap. I'd like this week to end sooner rather than later.

Your folks might understand ya', by and by.

I recently discovered something rather appalling. On Curtis Mayfield's classic record Curtis, there's a great, epic soul number called "Move On Up"; it's one of those soul classics that has a conga percussion part in it. Wow. Fantastic. Great horn part. It's definitely a driving in California-type song.

A brief digression: there are certain tunes that I classify as Driving in California songs. You know, the kind where you could definitely imagine yourself in a convertible sports car driving up the PCH on your way to LA, or on the 1 from LA to San Francisco. Vince Guaraldi's "Samba de Orpheus" is the quintessential driving in California song. Prince's "Baby, I'm a Star". "Nothing but Flowers" by the Talking Heads. "Race for the Prize". "Ma and Pa". You're getting the idea.

Anyway, this song is great. You should do yourself a favor and get it (the whole record is good, too; the first track "If There's Hell Below, We're All Gonna Go" is particularly interesting). Anyway, here I am, thinking it's this fantastic song, and the other day, I start to hear the upbeat horn part playing on TV.

Over a commercial.

Not just any commercial.

A truck commercial. Visuals included a bunch of huge Ford Trucks driving around a Nascar track. With Curtis Mayfield playing in the background! The same Curtis Mayfield who penned the following intro to an album:

Sisters! Ni**ers! Whiteys! Jews! Crackers!
Don't worry; if there's hell below, we're all gonna go. HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!.

I betcha that one would sell a hell of a lot of trucks.

Weird/Bad/Better Day

Today has been a veritable roller-coster of emotional reactions from me. I started out bad: I tried to shop around for cheap insurance, to no avail. Forgot to charge my phone overnight. Couldn't find parking, had to shell out the last of my coffee/lunch money for an on-campus permit. Had to fill my gas tank up to the tune of, like, thirty bucks. Realized that I had to buy insulin - not budgeted into my monthly expenditures. Ugh. Of course, this is all in the shadows of yesterday's uncertainty with regard to summer money. Not all that pleasing.

Then, I get to campus and realize that I lost one of my books somewhere. I mean, this one is expensive and important. Ran all around campus trying to find it, again to no avail. I was generally in a very pissed-off mood when I got to the logic exam I was proctoring.

But things started to look up. Logic isn't going to take that long to grade and it won't interfere with my grading for my other class. Also, Rage Kage found my copy of the book in his office, sitting on his desk. Apparently I put it there yesterday.

And I also did a pretty nice remix of my epic "La La Land". Actually, this one is a lot better than the old one. It's amazing how much a difference proper mixing can make. I discovered automations this last week, and that made the difference. I was able to add effects to only parts of tracks, which allowed me to do one thing I've been wanting to do. Also, the automations allowed me to do some better blending of the vocal tracks in the 'B' section. Anyway, it's up on the Castrato page. Eat this sweetish segment or spit it out. You are free.

Well yeah, I know, but when we did there was something we weren't thinking of.

I received a bit of weird/pleasant news today. My summer support was looking a bit dodgy; I was teaching a class, but that salary was not going to be enough to get me through the summer. I took on some extra work to save money, but that extra saved money should really have been going to pay of my credit card/student loan debts. So I get an email today saying that my advisor had applied for summer RAship support for me, without me asking or him approaching me. So this was exactly the windfall I needed! WOOHOO! I could pay off credit cards, afford a deposit on a new apartment, etc., etc.

But just now things got bizarre.

I was approached by the department graduate administrator who said there's another grad student whose summer support was not locked down, and if it didn't go through, could he/she have my RAship? But she didn't want to put me on the spot. UGH! How does this not put me on the spot? I'm conflicted, of course. I really need that money - the amount of money I have on credit is a serious joke. But I definitely don't want someone else to go without funding of any kind. That would be awful. They don't know when they'll know about the other person's summer funding.

Damn! What am I supposed to do? This affects me right now: if I got the money, I was going to waste NO TIME in sending money off to credit card companies with my meager savings. If I don't, I obviously can't. I suppose I should wait. I mean, I could just tell her that I won't give the money up. I'm sure she'd be fine with that. But that would grate on my conscience, I think.

If I just would have come to school today and heard nothing, I'd be in a better mood. I'd be able to get this work done that I desperately need to get done. 'Tis not to be. I'm going to fret the day away, I think.

New Adventures in FM2.

Note: Dale's internal monologue is enclosed in braces like so: {Dale's internal monologue}.

Leaving for campus. 11:30. Sunny day. Get in car. No CDs. {Sick of 'em.} Try radio!

89.5: NPR. Generally good. Car talk? No. Prarie Home Companion. {Not bad, but it's during a musical break; not the high-point of the show. See if there's something else cool.}

94.9: Reggae hour. {UGH!}

88.3: Jazz station. Big Band Brunch. But this tune is annoying; some dude crooning in Spanish. {Better switch.}

99.3: Oldies. Commercials.

100.7: Hmm...Staccato horn intro...rubber band bassline..."I'll Tumble 4 Ya". {This'll do for a few minutes.]

[pause]

{Am I really listening to "I'll Tumble 4 Ya?"}

Back to

99.3: Could it be...the Spencer Davis Group...Gimme Some Lovin'! {SWEET.} Turn it up. Listen loud. Song truncated by Dick Clark going to commercial. {Dammit! Does this station play anything but commercials?}

Back to

94.9: Reggae. {NOOO!}

100.7: {Hey, this sounds like "Owner of a Lonely Heart". Coo-WHADJA!?! Now it's "Come on, Eilene" Ok, I can di-WHAAA?! Now it's some other piece of crap. DAMMIT! PLAY A SONG ALREADY!} Finally settles on "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road."

[pause]

{Am I really listening to "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road?"} Back to:

89.5: Still the folk-music segment. Back to:

88.3: {Hmm. Sounds like a hot swingin' number. Cool. Oh no! Towards the end. Getting close to campus now...will I have to change one more time?!} End of Rob McConnell tune. {Ooh, Rob McConnell. Doesn't he play valve trombone?} Commercials. {DANG!} Back to:

99.3: Weird instrumental. {But Dick Clark said he was playing his favorite records. I've never heard this one before. Frankly, it's a little cheesy. Sounds like a cross between a Bee-Gees tune and the theme from the "Love Boat".}

Park. Turn car off. Exhausted.

Dressed in yellow, she says, "Hello".

It happens to me every time.

My haircut place doesn't always have the greatest music playing. In fact, most of the time it's downright annoying. You know, the greatest hits of Peter Cetera kinda' stuff. The occasional Richard Marx anthem. That really cheesy mid-era Billy Joel (and, well, the new-era Billy Joel for that matter). But usually when I go in there there's at least one song worth listening to that gets played over their wispy ceiling speakers.

Cruel fate, why do you mock me?

It happens at the same time every time. I'll get called back to the chair, take a seat, do the little pre-cut interview questionnaire and get escorted back to the shampoo-station. And as I'm walking back there, the good song will come on. Last time it was "Sussudio" by Phil Collins. This time: "Bust a Move". So I get to listen to perhaps five seconds of the good song before the loud water faucet is turned on and drowns it out. Ugh. Why couldn't the water drown out "When a Man Loves a Woman"? or "Somewhere Out There?" Why the good stuff? WHY? WHY?

This may sound petty to you, but getting my haircut is a pretty stressful experience, and it's a big help to have a story told by a guy about a girl who don't even know his name, but he thinks she likes him just the same.

The rest of the day is going to be marked by me picking small pieces of hair out of my computer keyboard.

To quote Rodney Dangerfield, "This place sucks."

Hey all.

Let's jog our memories, shall we? Well, it turns out that the job offer UCSD made to Michael Otsuka, who was going to be a new fantastic committee member, who was going to write me a sterling letter of recommendation, and who was going to whip my dissertation into presentable shape is not coming after all. Essentially, UCSD was unable to pony up a reasonable amount of cash to bring him here. And need I remind you, this news comes nearly THREE MONTHS after the hire was announced. Three fucking months. This, I take it, is not the fault of the department, but of the UCSD administration. But what I don't understand is this: with at least two other faculty members leaving next year, why don't we have the money to give Otsuka a little cash? What the hell is wrong with us? We have now officially become a joke. We are a joke. If I were a prospective student, as soon as this gets posted in the proper philosophical gossip pages, I'd run screaming. Frankly, it would have been much better had this just been a problem with the department. I'd chalk it up to the department's inability to hire anybody worthwhile. (With a few exceptions.) But now, even if we propose an offer to the greatest philosopher since Descartes, and she accepts it, it's still highly likely that the administration will turn down our hire proposal. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now floating in space. And space sucks.

So I received that news yesterday at around 5:30. After throwing things for about an hour, I decided to leave. What follows was a strange journey that almost gave me a heart attack with sheer rage. I was so pissed off I walked 3/4ths of a mile in the WRONG DIRECTION from my car. Turning around (and now with a significantly longer walk head of me, about a mile, if not more), I see a bus going in the direction I need to go. I hail it, it picks me up, and because of all the crappy construction going on around campus, it takes me not where I need to go, but on a bullshit detour that goes through campus, and drops me off all the way back at the department. 20 minutes later, I get to my car; I almost bash the windows in with my bare hands.

If I were a little younger, if I weren't already in my 6th year of graduate school, I'd consider starting over somewhere else. UCSD has been one round of bullshit after another: no funding, writing program first year, etc., etc. I'm angry. Perhaps I'll calm down in a few days, but that's an open question.

It even spreads itself against the sky.

So I come back from office hours in the computer lab today to my regular office, and the faculty (in the seminar room, which is one paper-thin wall from my office) are discussing the current graduate students and their overall impressions of us. Ugh. And, of course, the first name I hear is "Dorsey". This caused a fair amount of trauma for me, because there's a certain temptation to sit there and listen, get their real impressions. But I chickened out. I put on some headphones to my recently-ripped "Depeche Mode 101" and started grading some papers. I did hear two positive things and one mildly negative thing, but I couldn't make out exactly what the overall assessment was. I wish I wouldn't have heard what I heard.

Which brings me to the greatest thing about iTunes.

iTunes has this amazing property: the ability to rip disks that are thoroughly scratched to all hell. Case in point: Depeche Mode 101. I bought that record from a used CD store in Morgantown, WV in 1992. It's been unplayable since 1993. But for some reason, I kept it around, never really throwing it out. Yesterday I ripped it completely to iTunes, no skips, no problems. What a country! I also supplemented by horrifically anemic Prince collection on my computer with Purple Rain (to complement Sign O the Times and Dirty Mind). I think I've come to the conclusion that Purple Rain is actually not Prince's best record. I think that title belongs to Sign O. That one's a fantastic record. Especially disk 2: starts off with a bang: U Got the Look, followed by If I Was Your Girlfriend, and I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man. Also, I love the extended funkiness of Gonna Be a Beautiful Night - especially the sequence that starts like this:

PRINCE:
Everybody to the west-uh, everybody to the east-uh, everyman a picture - with my chicken grease, get wit' it!

HORNS:
da; da-da-da-da

PRINCE:
WOOO!

HORNS:
da-da-da-da-da-da-da

PRINCE:
Unh!

HORNS:
da-da-da-da.

Tell me you're not dancing right now. And if you do, you're lying.

She's got something you just can't touch; something mysterious.

Yesterday was very pleasant. I ended up going down toward the Ocean Beach area, looking to replace my thoroughly trashed Converse One-Stars. Had a tasty lunch at Hodad's (single bacon-cheese, fries, chocolate shake - good for what ails ya'). Eventually found the shoes I was looking for at this skateboard shoe-shop in Clairemont. Here's a sneak peak at 'em:

After I did all that, I achieved my grading goal for the day (6 papers total), and went off to $250's place to play a little poker. It was me, $250, MIT, and Hardbop. The poker was fun, especially because I was the big winner. I used a methodical approach. Nothing flashy, just wore them down. Well, wore $250 down. Hardbop also took home a little cash.

The funniest event of the night came when I tried to purchase beer for the party at the corner store by $250's place. When I went in there was nobody at the register, so I figured someone must eventually show up. I went back to the beer to check out the prices, and some guy walked past and asked me what I liked. Assuming he was in charge of the store, I wanted to know how much he wanted for the six-pack of Carlsberg.

MIDEASTERN SHOP OWNER:
Well, normally I charge $8.99. But for you, I make it, oh, $7.99.

DALE'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
What the fuck? Is he haggling with me? Am I supposed to propose a counter-offer? That still seems a lot for a sixer of Carlsberg. What am I supposed to say?

DALE:
Thanks. I'll think about it.

DALE'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
That seems like a lot. Maybe I'll get something cheaper, especially since I spent about a hundred bucks in the last couple of days on a movie, shoes, lunch, etc. I'll get this obviously cheaper six of Foster's.

[DALE picks up six of Foster's, gestures to the SHOP OWNER, indicating he's ready to purchase.]

MIDEASTERN SHOP OWNER:
You like that stuff?

DALE'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
Is he criticizing my beer choice?

DALE:
You don't like Foster's?

MIDEASTERN SHOP OWNER:
I can't drink that stuff, man. Ok. That'll be $7.99, plus CRV, plus tax; comes to $9.89.

DALE'S INTERNAL MONOLOGUE:
A) I guess that's what I get for turning down his Carlsberg offer. B) TWO BUCKS FOR TAX?? I've never heard of that. This guy has got to be screwing me over. Come on, D; ask him for an explanation. Challenge him on the receipt. He's screwing you over!!

DALE:
Thanks! Have a nice night.

[Dale exits store.]

Ah, missed opportunities. But the Foster's was good, though. Screw you, Shop Owner.