Celebration time

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My twenty-first birthday was spent in Chinhae, a naval town on the southern coast of the Korean peninsula. I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and my birthday fell on "preparation day"--the weekly time to do things only tangentially related to preaching the gospel (eg, go to the post office and mail a letter to Mom).

Since it was my birthday and since I outranked the other five missionaries in our haunted house (which is another post for another time), I decided that in celebration of me, we would clean the place up. I took the bathroom.

In that spirit, and in honor of my 100th post, I will now clean up by taking all the saved drafts and putting them here, a compendium of ideas and thought started but never finished. Some nearly so, some nowhere near so.

Only on the internet can someone other than Norman Mailer present rejected notions and rough drafts as being of worth to the rest of humanity.

So. Come celebrate with me.

Behold! The id!

...8/16/2005

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Okay, consider the following following fourteen characteristics of a fictional person:

1. Likes babies
2.



furry animals biting harry potter hot

Yesterday

...8/28/2005

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Lady Steed grew up visiting her great-grandmother every summer. She learned to love painting and applesauce and the smell of old Sicilian men's food from those visits. Her great-grandmother offered Lady Steed her love of beauty and her honor of work, and they loved each other.

Thursday, she died.

Friday we drove up to the Bay Area again, arriving after midnight, arrising early the next morning for the funeral.

Not for public consumption

...8/29/2005

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As I leave my job, I am leaving behind all the excellent links I have collected.

Some I will never need again.

Some I shall.

Those I will post here for me to get later. I don't pretend this will interest anyone else, this just seems like a convenient place for them.

http://hip1.sjvls.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=11FSU49054462.6711&profile=kehq&menu=search&ts=1107549054478

Wood

...9/26/2005

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I wore my wood tie today.

Lady Steed gave it to me for our fifth anniversary (traditional gift: wood). It's always a big hit.

I just now realized that the other tie I rarely wear (a sequined Christmas tree) was also given me by a girl (back in high school).

I guess I require the assistance of a woman to accomplish flare.....

Student response

...9/26/2005

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(If you haven't read this post yet, go back and do so.)

The following are some of the wonderfully literary observations made by my students on one of the aforementioned songs:

---On "Love Is..." by King Missile---

Q. How does this song fail to meet your expectations of a love song?

A. It fails because the music was horrible, and the lyrics were worst.

A. The song had really bad lyrics.

A. It just a wack song.

A. This failed to meet my expectations for a song period because it made absolutely no sense whatsoever.

A. I didn't that I don't like this song because is not my type.

A. cause I HATE THIS Dumb SONG.

A. The beat was horrible

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Now, I had never heard of King Missile before marrying Lady Steed (she brought the cd with her) and although I don't love them, I think that "Love Is..." and other of their songs are rather funny. But these sophomores hated the song.

So now I'm wondering if I may actually be quite messed up.

Out of control

...9/28/2005

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And it's not even spring break.

I'm told that the teachers are talking about how I'm too nice and I will not last. Another teacher say sthat I will win out with kindness and the nice guy will take the day.

I would settle for a little bit of shut up.

Lunch

...9/28/2005

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Lunch is now in session at Bedrock High School. I am eating a full meal courtesy of Lady Steed and listening to the delightful sounds of kids yelling. If I were to look out the windows, I would witness posturing by tomorrow's alpha males (except those engaged in reproductive practice), chattering hubs of partially clothed girls and snatchets of kids aloofly looking on, commenting to their friends about how too cool they are for all this high school silliness.

Me, I'm in one of the five rooms I teach in

Revolver

...10/05/2005

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Why are The Beatles the greatest band that ever was?

You'll note that I am taking it as a given that they are the greatest band ever. Argue that point if you will, I'm more interested in why that is.

It seems to me that a band which, depending on how you count, was born in the first or second (possibly the third) generation of rock and roll has no right to be the greatest band that ever was. After many years of collective experience, then we should produce the greatest band that ever was.

Now, perhaps in 100 years one of the current critical droolfests (Coldplay? The White Stripes?) will be pegged as the greatest, but I have to leave my money on the Liverpudlians.

For her birthday, I gave Lady Steed ""Sgt. Pepper's" and with a gift certificate she purchased ""Revolver" for herself.

"Revolver" was an album I had very little familiarity with. Of course, I knew "Here, There, And Everywhere" (they were playing it at the supermarket last night) and "Yellow Submarine" (more on that in a sec), but the album as a whole was an unknown to me as when I purchased ""Rubber Soul" right off my mission. (No, I was not well educated in rock as a child.)

And it is with "Rubber Soul" I would like to start.

"Rubber Soul" was, rather famously, the first album ever recorded. Before "Rubber Soul" were published collections of songs, a few good, a few filler.

Photography

...10/06/2005

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(Inspired by daltongirl.)

When I was 19 and preparing to serve a mission, I was filling out forms and getting physicals and in need of a photo to send to the gentlemen who would send me a letter saying where I would go.

(rooster photo)

1000 words

...10/12/2005

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In my freshman classes we are writing short stories and in order to demonstrate that it is not hard, I sat down in front of the computer, turned on a projector, and performed "Writing a Short Story."

They are required to write only 500 words, but in half they time they took to do half that, I did almost double.

Now, I don't pretend that this is headed to the canon, but since it's about all the fresh I've written lately, I thought I would share and, Plant-like, give it a chance in the free market to live or die.

Here it is, in all its unresearched and unedited glory:

F******s

...10/12/2005

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Ah, floppies.

Someone somewhere is named Ridcully and I can't think who it is

...10/17/2005

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The world is small.

When I served my mission---

Wait. Hold that thought.

Last week, the ten year anniversary of my entrance into the MTC passed and I didn't even notice. I don't feel that old, but it seems much much longer than ten years ago....

Anyway, when I was on my mission, I liked the two-week delay between letters sent and letters received. It created a fascinating communication dynamic which, I imagine, is all but dead now.

Ten years ago, Lady Steed and I would have heard, for instance, a rumor that Nemesis was in England (though we wouldn't call her Nemesis of course) and we would think "Huh" and that would be that. We would hope that someday we could say howdoyedo and shake hands again, but till that day, c'est la vie.

And even with email, while Lady Steed and Nemesis would write every great once-in-a-while, I would not be likely to ever communicate with her.

And so my argument that blogging may be an even bigger world-shrinker than email.

Here I go getting boring and meta again.....

A dozen minor points

...10/31/2005

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1. The latest searches to bring the innocent to Tehachapiltdownman: "naked women for cell phones" - "dradonsbane" - "spoken word"

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Ghosts of Halloween Past

...11/01/2005

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snowsuits in idaho

the party premakeout

the whole trickortreating thing

rumby

ggtt

Countdown to insanity

...11/14/2005

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10 -



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So! You see what you've been missing out on?


Party on,

Theric