Thugs

- Krister

- Thugs

- Krister, are you awake?

- One.

- Krister, wake up.

- There are thugs in here.

This is an excerpt, I think, from a conversation Nick and I had. It was his duty to wake me up so I could drive us to work. It is, of course, important to note that this was after Jeremy's last night in town. And actually, I don't think I'd be hungover at all if it weren't for that fucking Scorpion Bowl.

God damn, that Scorpion Bowl was a lot of liquor in a short amount of time.

A good night, though. Jeremy and I went out and brought out his younger brother, Justin, who is recently 21. It was his first real bar experience. Accordingly, we brought him to Bull Feenys - where J. Biddy (of course) was playing. We then swung by Gritty's. I had the Christmas Ale. If any of y'all can tell me what that tastes like, I'll give you a high five. It was delicious. After we ordered our beers at the secondary bar and returned to the main floor, we discovered a horn band had moved in and was playing Christmas Jingles and everyone was drunkenly singing along, including the house band. After that "Fa la la la la, La la la la" song and Jingle Bells, they left and t'other band continued doing their blues/stoned rock thang.

Jess and Courtney met up with us there, accompanied us to Ri Ra's and then we went up to The Iguana Lounge where she bought us that dastardly Scorpion Bowl.

We made it home. I passed out. Nick woke me up and the conversation at the beginning of this post took place.

Then I came to work. Then I wrote this blog. After that, I don't know what happened.

Sex Sells

I was watching the commercials during the show today and noticed one for Saddleback. When the Saddleback logo came up I thought, "Huh, that's an... interesting choice."

If you want to have a look, the website has a copy of it. It's up at the top. It mostly looks like a mountain. But it also would make Hokusai proud, I think.

Ha!

You go, girl.

A Review

So, the parts of today that weren't at work were, in all actuality, pretty neat! And even work wasn't that bad.

So I got up at four and showered and changed and put on my new shirt(which actually doesn't look much like that comic), and Nick and I took separate vehicles to work for some reason. I guess he'd thought about it and figured we might need to. Turns out we didn't. Sorry, Mother Nature!

I wasn't needed at work. I made one cut and posted a couple of things to the web. Most monkeys are too smart to do that sorta bullshit. But it was OK. Sarah and I got in crazy snow fights. I don't wanna say "snowball" because the snow wouldn't clump, but she won once (sorta, she got lucky) and I won once. I think I won betterly. After all, when she "won" I didn't have to reapply my make-up AND I didn't ruin a starting advantage. She got Nick to trick me to come outside, smacked me with a snowball and tried to knock me over. I still beat her.

So. In the end, I'm better. That's what we all decided. Then we drank toasts to my awesomeness.

After work I walked down to L.L. Bean and bought me some new boots (which are INDEED made for walkin') and some gloves. It was a lot of fun walking around the city in the Nor'Easter. Portland sorta took on this desolate, post-apocalyptic feel. There was virtually no traffic and very few people were out on the streets. I discovered, however, there is one bad thing about beards.

Snotcicles. Yep. Gross.

And it was really only a problem on the walk to L.L. Bean as the wind was right in my face the whole time. But the boots were 70% off! They wound up costing me $18. If you can believe that. And they are a marked improvement over my last pair which was swiftly losing it's sole/soul.

And I ate and caught some of The Eiger Sanction. It wasn't as good as the book. And while I hate that comparison typically, I feel my reasons are sound. In the book, Hemlock is dry, witty and charmingly sociopathic. Clint Eastwood, as Hemlock in the movie, is dry, witless and charmlessly flat. Although, the movie was still somewhat compelling. Hemlock should read more like House. I think the problem is Clint Eastwood has a natural warmth which works against the character of Hemlock. Or maybe Hemlock just isn't supposed to be that likeable. Even as distant and dry and Eastwood is in The Man With No Name trilogy, for instance, there's still something about him that's compelling.

Anyway, I took a nap and went back in to work and proceeded to be primarily useless again. The notable exception being when there was no camera person at all for the first half hour of the show. Then I came in handy.

Then I came home and parked at King Middle School and marched home and ate some chinese food. Now it's 8:30ish and I think I'm gonna chill out for an hour or so and then go to sleep.

IMPORTANT THINGS I SAW TOD

aY,

1. On my trip back from L. L. Bean I saw a chap walking around the city in snowshoes. Unnecessary? Yes, probably. Cool and fun just the same? Most definitely.

2. Not one, not two but THREE people cruisin' the streets of Portland on cross-country skis. And I think they were all the classical style. No herringbone for them!

A pretty decent day.

Good Morning

One of the great things about working in The News for a borderline Yellow Journalist station is that some days you get called into work at five in the morning to report on something that's not new.

Like a Nor'easter in Maine. Not really news.

The drinking game is to take a shot every time you (at home) hear any of the following: "this just in," "breaking news," "here's something you need to know about." Take a shot every other time they say, "this morning" and take two shots for "allegedly" and "massive."

There's more, I'm sure, but I'm tired and have to get up in four hours.

Anyway, I'm sure we'll do a good job pumping up this storm and letting you know that, yep, shitty weather in the middle of this storm.

There you go.

Oh, the memories!

Eh heh heh heh heh heh

Definitely worth checking out the Resume. There's also a link to some pictures from one of Randall's film shoots.

It's all pretty funny. Freshmen year! Ha, those guys were tools.

Dear Anonymous

Anonymous Student Blogger,

Thanks for the comment! It was quite enjoyable to read it, despite my having basically zero clue who you are. As time wears on, you forget the bad parts (and students, even idiotic ones, were not the bad part of being a teacher) and remember the good. I have a lot of fond memories of teaching. It was an important choice for me to make, I think. Maybe even the right one! Which is crazy.

Absolutely crazy.

But what I enjoyed about teaching was the students. It was all you guys that made it worth getting up fucking early and/or (only twice) hung over. It was you guys that made it worth sitting through completely boring and often pointless meetings about meeting state criteria on such and such learning results. It was you guys that made it worth staying late and parents night and all the myriad bullshit and detritus you have to sift through as a teacher.

I wish to express, right here in front of you and whoever is over your shoulder and whatever godhead you might believe in, that all of my students were awesome people. I loved each and every one of my kids. As students, a larger percentage than I wanted were kinda shitty, but as kids you guys were awesome.

The actual in class time was by and large fun. I'll admit I'm horrible at the whole "disciplining" thing and thus a couple of classes were a little wild. A lot wild. Um. A bit ridiculous, really, especially toward the end of the year. BUT when y'all actually shut up for the fifteen seconds it took to explain something it was pretty cool. And I must admit it was part of the wildness that was fun. Only part of it, though.

In the end, the reason I left teaching had nothing to do with any misdeeds or evil enacted by the student population. Even with the meetings and bullshit I was considering teaching for another year. My decision to leave was mine and mine alone. I decided I'm young and have too many irresponsibilities on my shoulders. Reckless shit needs gettin' done, and I feel like I'm the one for it. At least for some of it.

Don't worry, mum, it's nothing too bad. Just road trips and that European thing over the summer and late night painting and spending time working on drawing/writing/guitar instead of grading/lesson planning.

I don't feel that the lifestyle I (currently) want to live coexists peacefully with that of a teacher. Not that teachers don't have fun and aren't great, wonderful people. Many of my favorite people on the planet have been teachers of some stripe. That includes you, Mum. My Dad teaches, albeit in a different context, but I think it counts, Mr. Glennon and Señora Hubka remain heroes of mine. And some day after I've settled down a bit (but not too much, teachers shouldn't be completely lame) maybe I'll teach again.

Who knows?

Teaching is a huge job. Between the actual class time, grading, lesson plans, meetings and sundry you wind up working for most of your life. At least if you're as scattered as I am, you do. Not what I needed. I need a job that doesn't follow me home. I don't want to be as responsible as a teacher needs to be. I'm not a great role model right now. But, I feel like that's a pretty mature decision for myself. Instead of slogging through misery, I'll step into the life I want to live for the time being and embrace it.

But school was an enriching experience. Thanks, former student, for reminding me that even under a pile of shit, there can be nuggets of gold.

Yours,
Señor Rollins

The True Source

So, life imitates art. The "art" in question being those Gatorade ads where people sweat gatorade, of course. I wanted to add an "imitates life" to the end of that first sentence, but I don't think it really happened all that much before

Wisdom

Instead of whiny, pseudo-intellectual pretentions, today's post is a simple case of "See, I told you so" as justified by the ever accurate, apt and hilarious Dinosaur Comics.

In the matter of the first "See, I told you so," I present as evidence: Bread. And I would again remind you, dear reader(s, I think more than mum reads this) that the rollover is often hilarious and enlightening. The "rollover" - for you luddites - is when you hold your mouse over the image and a little text box pops up.

I encourage you to do it with that comic. Go on.

It is also important to note that this comic about one of my most favoritest of foods was published on my 22nd birthday.

And the second "See, i told you so," is about cephalopods. Again, the rollover is important.

Enjoy your newly discovered awe and admiration at my undeniable wisdom, charm and modesty.

The date of this publication means little to me.

Rock on, y'all.

I've been thinking

As lame as it is, philosphy is pretty neat.

I guess my big issue with it, though, is that it's mostly talk and little action. "Man's true nature is this," a philosopher might say and then proceed to not really do much about it. Publishing a book is all well and good, but who knows how permanent literacy is? Well, I'd say it's fairly permanent at this point, but how all-encompassing will it be? Mass literacy is relatively recent - we could probably celebrate it's sesquicentenial nowish - and even then it's only in the "first world."

It's a handy method for disseminating ideas, I guess. But will it always be around? Does that relegate philosophical discussion to the realm of the philosphers? Could it be argued, I wonder, that people like Marx, Chomsky or those guys who made those Utopian Societies here in the states (Oneida, Brook Farm etc.) are philosphers? They're dealing with fundamentals about human life and the way it should be.

I don't know.

I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say.

Although, I've been giving it some thought and I've decided that most governments are too big. Trying to deal with too many people and too many issues inside their borders. It grants too much power to too many people who are, ultimately, fallible. We haven't had a government yet that actually allows for easy changes in the status quo. The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor. And while I'm not sure I completely agree with the idea that a government is just a classed up mob that taxes instead of demanding protection money, I'm not sure I completely disagree with it, either.

Anarchosocialism. It's sounding like a better and better idea to me. Of course, it's not without it's own issues, but I really think that any system that tries to control more than one family is going to lead to oppression, suppression, suffering and poverty which may not be completely just and fair.

Well, I've been letting that foment in my noggin for a while. I think it still needs more BUT so far I'm with it.