Taking the bus is really quite an amazing thing.

Well not really until you get to the Port Authority bus terminal in NY, then you realize the scope of the operation. Hundreds of buses moving in and out of the area, a constant flow of large people movers that never seems to stop. The coordination that takes must be incredible.

Another amazing thing was the Westin Hotel in Times Square, where Alison was nice enough to let me stay last night. It was probably the nicest hotel I've ever been in. There were TVs in the elevators, the rooms had incredibly comfortable beds, there were two shower heads in the shower for some reason (my future bathroom will definitely have that), and an insanely great view of the city from the bathroom and the room itself.

Also there was HBO and other good channels on the TV.

Went to bed pretty early but man I'm very tired right now. And hung over.

Ah 5 PM...

My last Monday here in Rutherford.

The weather is very fall like today. Semi-warm during the day, but you can tell its going to be kind of chilly tonight. Maybe high 40s or low 50s, which is very unsummer like.

I think my favorite phrase for the summer was "Its just like any other part of the year, except now when I'm at work its hot outside." I kind of wish I had thought a little better about how much I like having the summer off when I was figuring out what I want to do. I suppose I still am free to become whatever I want, its just a bit more difficult now. I don't think I would be a good teacher anyway though.

Whatever happened to Third Eye Blind? Didn't they seem like they just couldn't miss after that first album was so awesome. Losing a Whole Year. Jumper. Hows It Going to Be. Semi Charmed Life. Graduate. Narcolepsy (my favorite) And then their second album came out. And well, it had that one single. What was it? I can't even remember it. It was kind of catchy, but the rest of the album pretty much blew. I remember listening to it at one point and thinking:

I can't believe I wasted a blank CD to burn this.

Ooh, Everywhere is now coming onto my Yahoo player. Michelle Branch is cute.

I got the stupidest message from my friend Jim on Thursday night, and I just remembered it now.

"Dude where are you? We're playing contra, and we can't remember the code for thirty guys. Is it B,A or A,B?"

Here's an idea... WHY DON'T YOU TRY THEM BOTH???

up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, b, a, start

I went food shopping with my Mom and bought a box of these Berry Burst Cheerios, which somehow have real strawberries in the box.




I was kind of skeptical, but they are about as good as can be expected. They are sort of like dehydrated strawberries mixed into some honey nut cheerios, so its a pretty good combination. What an age we live in!

Things you don't want to hear from the mechanic:

"Well you were about to die."

I took my car into NTB this morning to have it looked at, since most mechanics aren't around on the weekends. I drove home and dropped it off around 11:30, and my mom picked me up from there. So I'm waiting for the guy to call and eventually I call there at 2:15 and the guy gets on the phone, says the above quote, and goes over a laundry list of things that are wrong with the car. Turns out that sound of something loose under the car was just about everything banging into each other, from the shocks not working to there being problems with the wheel well and axles to all sorts of other stuff. The cost?

$901.00

Ouch.

So this weekend hasn't gone so well.

So now what?

I have one more week here, and absolutely NOTHING to do. I am going out of my mind right now and I have like three more hours to sit here staring at this computer screen. Nobody is responding to my IMs and nobody is emailing either.

Some of you may be thinking, well he must have something to do... well you are incorrect. I have nothing to do. I have already put notes in all my file folders, and wrote up a ten page single spaced manual for this position. I've informed critical contacts that I'm leaving, and in most cases met with them to tie up loose ends. I have planned out the next six months of events for this center. I don't know what else I can even do.

So lets turn our attention to how long of a blog entry we can make here.


Songs I like that I've heard on the radio:

Shake Your Tailfeather - Nelly, P Diddy, Murphy Lee
Amazing - Josh Kelly
Harder to Breathe - Maroon 5

Songs I hate that I've heard on the radio:

Bigger than my Body - John Maier (is there a more annoying sound than the first five seconds of this song?)
Crazy In Love - Beyonce (I've heard this so many times I want to just smack myself)
My Love is Like (whoa) - Mya (alright shutup)


Things I've eaten the last two days:

Boston Market, 2 piece dark with 2 sides, stuffing (too wet this time) and mac and cheese (old). Not well prepared.
Dannon strawberry yogurt fruit on the bottom
3 Scrambled eggs, 2 pieces of toast, and 3 pieces of turkey bacon
Sausage, egg, and cheese on a croissant from Dunkin Donuts
2 nectarines


How I've spent the last 24 hours of my life

9/25
2:00 PM - 3:45PM: Meeting in Englewood with a head of a nursing school
3:45 PM - 5:00 PM: Drive back to New Brunswick
5:00 PM - 6:45 PM: Play Tiger Woods 2004
6:45 PM - 7:15 PM: Cook eggs, bacon, toast, watch The Simpson
7:15 PM - 8:45 PM: Play Tiger Woods 2004
8:45 PM - 9:00 PM: Shower
9:00 PM - 10:00 PM: Play Tiger Woods 2004
10:00 PM - 10:30 PM: Try to convince people to come to the Olive Branch with me
10:30 PM: Leave for Olive Branch by myself
11:00 PM - 1:00 AM: Drinking at the Olive Branch
1:00 AM - 1:15 AM: Drive back home
1:15 AM - 2:00 AM: Play Tiger Woods 2004
2:00 AM - 2:05 AM: Drunken phone call from Alison
2:05 AM - 7:45 AM: Sleep
7:45 AM - 8:00 AM: Shower, dress, get in car.
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM: Drive to work, narrowly miss many major potential accidents
9:00 AM - now: Schedule classes, ask how to get into NYC, eat lunch, write emails and blogs.

Peggy: So, what are you gonna spend your refund on?
Marcy: Well we were thinking about taking a romantic trip to Paris.
Peggy: Oh, I've always wanted to go to Paris.
Al: Oh yeah Paris - where they hate Americans... where they won't let our bombers fly overhead, oh yeah, until they get invaded, and then they come crawling back, beret in hand, for us to bail 'em out - with "my" tax dollars! That's where your going??
Steve: No, no... we just said that... you know... to kid you. We hate the French.
Al: You know what I would do if I had a few extra bucks?
Marcy: Bomb the French?
Al: No, no, I was talking about a 'little' extra money.



http://www.bundyology.com/french.html

Oh Phils.

You gave me such hope this year.

And now you are not in the playoffs yet again. Due to a monumental suck/choke job the likes of which hasn't been seen since I didn't hit the one cup when we were up 10-1 against Parker and Miller.

This actually is even worse.

Being swept three games in the most important season of the year against your direct competitor is pathetic. Losing two games over the weekend to the Cincinnati Reds, a team whose starting lineup I can name exactly 11 percent of at any one time, is even more pathetic.



And Pat Burrell, your season makes me want to vomit in disgust.

I may seem a little bitter this morning, which I realize is very out of character for me. But the Phillies just broke my heart yet again. Adding in the fact that Jon Kitna is now one of my starting QBs for this weekend, and sports isn't going very well for me.

Except for Tiger Woods 2004. I'm dominating in the greatest golf game ever made. You know its a good game when the first intro scene goes along to DMX's song (I forget the name, its like Yall gonna make me lose my mind) and shows all these animations for the game. It really pumps you up.

A column from Bill English, one year ago approximately. Full column available at www.chronicle.duke.edu. Go into archives, type Bill English, and find his October 7th, 2002.

"I like women, I really do. I have come to the important conclusion, however, that I can still care about women and not care at all about "women's issues." I think I am not alone in holding this view; indeed, I imagine many women may share it. When I say women's issues, though, I don't mean things like the 19th amendment and spousal abuse. Those are human issues. All citizens should have the right to vote, and no person should be beaten. Such issues ultimately rest on an appeal to an individual's status as human, not as woman. "

Disclaimer - Please read the story in The Chronicle from 9/24/03 about this year long Women's Initiative Report and its "findings."

Here is a brief look at some parts of it from someone who hasn't read the report, only the article in The Chronicle and a NY Times article about it.

1)"Across the University, women expressed concern about their safety and security on campus. Undergraduate women said they fear stranger rape and expressed both support and blame for victims of acquaintance rape. Female graduate and professional students felt significantly less safe than male students in academic buildings, parking lots and when walking or biking on or off campus. Female employees said the University needs to do more to protect women in settings where they are exposed to potential sexual harassment or assault. "

I don't really know what to make of this. Females feel less safe than male students in a lot of places. Isn't this typical not of Duke, but of the world in general? And to any of you females from Duke - Did any of you actually fear being raped while you were in say, Social Sciences after a 7 - 9:30 PM class lets out? Off campus may be a different story - hell I feared for my life while I was a freshman and wandering around off East Campus looking for my friend Lee's car. But I thought this report was about the status of women at Duke, not whatever happens in Durham or the world.

Note: James has taken exception to this point, as he mentions an incident senior year that we all know about in Perkins. I think I've been a bit unclear here. I am not saying that campus security is unimportant. My point is that a certain amount of crime is going to be present at any institution or place, such that no amount of extra security or whatnot is going to make the situation demonstrably better. There are criminals and thugs in the world and they are going to commit crimes, and if you single out isolated events and treat them as the norm, you get a skewed picture of your world.

2)"The report also describes a social environment for undergraduate women in which they are expected to achieve "effortless perfection"--perfection that entails being smart, accomplished, fit, beautiful and popular, all without visible effort--and an academic environment in which they often must balance intellectual ability with femininity. In addition to acknowledging problems that do not have simple solutions, the Women's Initiative report detailed a number of improvements that are already completed or underway and called for other substantive changes. "

Um, what does this even mean? Duke is an environment where everyone tries to look nice, act nice, and be smart, and this is a bad thing? How is this a women only problem? Would this paragraph be any more signficant if every instance of "women" was replaced by "men" (and other similar changes)? I don't know what this even is calling for; guys to not hold attractive and intelligent girls in high esteem?


3) "Among the report's recommendations for the improvement of undergraduate life are an increase in mentoring opportunities for undergraduate women, the promotion of all-female environments such as residence halls, increased efforts to recruit more female faculty, the devotion of more resources to eating disorders and sexual assault and the encouragement of a stronger dating culture at Duke. "

I really like the last one. We have a report that encourages a stronger dating culture at Duke. Am I the only one who finds this to be idiotic?

4) "Members of the Women's Initiative Steering Committee said they recognize that a long road lies ahead of them in addressing many of the society-wide gender issues that are relevant to life and work at the University. They noted, however, that the Women's Initiative has brought the University much closer to becoming a "truly co-educational institution.""

I'm sorry, but Duke wasn't truly co-educational? I don't think I know any female at Duke who feels she didn't get the full college experience that a male got at our school. Seriously. If I'm wrong email me.

5) "Roth noted that the report "reflects the broader culture of our society as much as anything else," but that she still thinks the University will be able to chart significant progress for women. "

Well duh. I could have put together this report in one day, and for significantly less money and resources than I'm sure that went into it.


What is the point of all this? I don't know. It just really irks me a little bit to see this is being made such a big deal. I feel like this is the poster report for a culture where everyone is the victim of something. Everything bad is the cause of some repression and if that repression was lifted then everything would be awesome. I just find it extremely unlikely that women are so repressed at my alma mater. Of course, I have a very skewed viewpoint, but I would greatly appreciate some comments coming in from the other gender on this.

As if the day didn't seem long enough (I have to hang around here till 6 PM for an event that nobody is going to show up for), I just purchased Tiger Woods 2004 from Best Buy. Now I will sit and stare at it in anticipation of playing it for eight straight hours when I return home.

I long for the days of Married With Children.

For those of you who never watched it, it was the first of its kind. The raunchy family comedy, filled with sexual innuendos and hilarious behavior. Well, not really the first, but the first to raise (or lower) the bar on what is acceptable on TV.

There was Al, the husband who sold shoes and made no money. He also never ate because Peg, his wife, never cooked. They had two kids, Kelly (Christina Applegate) who was hot but dumb as a brick, and Bud, who was smart, but never could get any ass. And they had two neighbors, Marci, who was a banker, and Steve (and later Jefferson) who was a banker and a house husband, respectively. I still get giddy when I see a good episode come onto FX, but there doesn't seem to be any regular schedule for it.

Favorite episodes that I remember off the top of my head:

*Al and the family break down in the middle of some hick state, and some hicks sell him a map to a gold mine. He and the family go mining for gold, find a lot of it, only it turns out to be fools gold. This is a two part episode.

*At their twenty year (probably) high school reunion, Peg rigs the election so she can win queen while Al beats up his high school nemesis in a parking lot fight.

*Al learns that to qualify for a large inheritance he must make Peg pregant again, but Peg wants to continue to have sex for as long as possible, so she takes birth control pills.

And of course, there is the ever present group known as NO MAAM. Which stands for:

National
Organization of
Men
Against
Amazonian
Masterhood

What a great show. Now what do we have? Everybody Love Raymond. Still Standing. Bah. Give me Cheers or Night Court anytime.

Just went food shopping and found my favorite things - Campbell's Chunky Soups. Buy 2 get 2 free!



I microwaved one for lunch. Now I'm all full.

Just bought my plane ticket to San Francisco for November. Only $251.50, which seems pretty reasonable to me. Its been awhile since I was out on the West Coast (Feb for work), so it should be nice out there, I'm looking forward to it a whole lot.

The cat and I entered into a bigger war last night. I was watching TV and eating dinner and it comes wandering into my room. It hops up onto my bed, and I'm like "No. No! NO!" and try to shove it off the bed, which I end up doing. However, an hour later, it walks in again, hops up on my bed, and ignores my yelling at it. It then walks up near my pillow, while I'm screaming at it and trying to lightly shove it away, and lies down next to my pillow. It didn't lie down in a normal way either, with its legs under it. It laid completely down obnoxiously with its back somehow on my futon and its paws stretched in either direction!

At this point I'm infuriated, so I try to pick it up, and it motions like its going to bite me.

So I pick up my pillow, and using that as protection, push it off the bed. It wasn't too happy about this and kind of cowered from me for the rest of the night. I felt kind of bad so I gave it this stress reliever I had lying around, and it played with it for awhile. Things were going well until it tried clawing my Playstation 2 controller cord, which I would have none of.

Due to this horrendous storm up here it took me 1 hour and 45 minutes to get to work this morning. You can imagine how happy that made me.

Countdown to Tiger Woods 2004 - 65 Hours remaining

The weekend was one of those long and short ones - seemed like we did a whole lot but it went very fast.

Friday night in NYC to see Ben from Atlanta was pretty fun. We played some beer pong in Al's apartment and Cooper even made an appearance, as he lied to Katie and told her that I was bringing two guys along with me. Eventually she found out that it was Michelle and Vanessa (two girls) and she threw one of her classic hissy fits over the phone. There probably was some crying too.

We went to this bar called Lolita's and we're probably not allowed in there again after Cooper liberated a bottle of vodka from behind a bar. Eventually someone figured it out and as I was in line for a bathroom everyone abandoned me. This bartender with a heavy accent tried to confront me but I feigned being unable to speak english and kept pointing at my half empty brooklyn lager sitting on the table. He got pissed because he had nothing on anyone and just had to tell us to leave.

I slept on a hardwood floor. Not too comfortable.

Saturday was a day of rest until going home for a house party at Sue's. This was pretty awesome, as we stayed up till 4 or so just drinking and eating. It was an appetizers and booze party, so there was all this food like chips and salsa, pigs in a blanket, and this awesome crab dip that someone made. The end of the night saw me just drinking bacardi O over ice with a splash of OJ. I was hurting a wee bit the next day.

Also, Laura brought along her semi-boyfriend of the last eight months, and he is the most infuriating and obnoxious human being on earth. He knew pretty much nobody there, and somehow made enemies with every single person at this party. I even tried being nice to him and gave up after five minutes. Even Michelle got pissed at him. Highlights of his "Who brought this ass?" behavior:


"I don't shop at Wal Mart. Niggers shop there." - the ass


(I sit back down at a table after getting a drink)
Ass: Whats with you?
Evan: (bewildered) Huh?
Ass: (mocking) huh? what? huh?
Evan: WHAT?
Ass: You were talking so much before. You were doing so good.
Evan: (What is this idiot trying to do?) Um, sometimes the most prudent action is not to talk.
Ass: You have fun with that.
Evan: I will. (leaves table)


Michelle: Hi I'm Michelle
Ass: You're going to have to stop talking so fast. I can't understand one word you said.
Michelle: okay...

There were also many other incidents that I don't want to get into here... suffice to say, someohow everyone had a problem with him. What was more amazing was that he didn't know anyone! He just had this uncanny ability to say exactly the most antagonistic and obnoxious things to complete strangers.

Laura, I imagine you don't read this, but if by some chance you do, he is probably the worst human being I've ever met. Sorry, but someone has to tell you.

I opened up the Best Buy thing in the newspaper yesterday, and I saw something glorious.

Tiger Woods 2004 is coming out on Thursday.

Tiger Woods 2003 was the reason I even own a Playstation 2. I played the game at one of those setup playstation demo things in electronics boutique or gamespot or one of those places, and bought the Playstation 2 and that game the next day. I must have spent 8 hours a day playing it once I bought it. For approximately 2 months.

It was quite simply the best golf game ever made. Until now.

I can't believe how psyched I am for it.

My housemate Cristin asked yesterday as I watched wrestling - "You know its fake, so why do you watch it?"

My reply - "For the same reason that a lot of people watch soap operas even though they know they are just actors."

Then someone else said that she doesn't watch soap operas either. So my point was kind of lost. Oh well.

A random half page from Baseball Prospectus, that I for some reason really enjoy reading:

"A good rule of thumb in consulting is to charge double if your client's a family run business. It's not enough, but at least it's a start.

Family-run enterprises of all varieties are notoriously problematic. The politics, intrigue, and associated baggage that occur in every business are intensified and magnified when combined with the emotions and relationships that come with every family. Every business would prefer to have some form of a merit-based recognition and development program, where employees do good work, they're recognized and rewarded for it, the company prospers, and the employees' faith in management and the company increases as a result of the success. The larger the enterprise and/or family, the worse things get. The competent worker who does a great job can only hope to move up to the Tom Hagen role in the company - you can't get promoted into the inner circle because of an accident of birth, while drooling nephews move into upper management. The best interests of the company and the best interests of individual family members don't often align, and the company finishes second in those skirmishes, often undermining the effectiveness and morale of the people in the company, and eventually dragging the organization down into a spiral with a surprisingly low bottom.

Think about it. Does anyone really think that of the six billion people in the world, the single most qualified individual to run Ford Motor Corporation just happens to be Bill Ford? Of course not. There's probably some management savant guy in Burkina Faso who's a lousy farmer, but has a natural ability to put together and execute a brilliant integrated global strategy, but that guy's not going to get to the job. Working in or with a family business has a large number of risks and pitfalls that aren't present in other companies. Other companies do hire nepotistas, but you don't have the damage caused by teh sleights from years past, bad memories from family gatherings, emotional baggage that could fill a C-141, and the occasional burst of spectacular incompetence that just woulnd't happen if the company in question hadn't hired someone without any qualificatoins for the job other than the right DNA.

Which brings us to the Milwaukee Brewers."

If any of you are baseball fans, I encourage you to purchase a copy of Baseball Prospectus 2003. It takes a very statistical look at pretty much every important player in organized baseball, and also gives long team analysis pages that are incredibly entertaining to read. It is over 500 pages long and I still find new stuff to read in it everyday.

A record setting 11 thumbs down goes to James and V for not coming to NYC tomorrow night. You both are banned.

The hurricane is approaching, and I can't help but wish that its path would have taken it straight through North Jersey so I wouldn't have to come to work tomorrow. As it stands, it will miss us and instead just cause 40 or 50 mph winds and rain, making my Friday morning commute even less pleasant.

In one of those "don't go food shopping when you are hungry" moments, I now have four boxes of Pasta Roni in my room because I was enamoured with how the things looked on the box and that you only needed milk (sometimes) and water. I dread eating that stuff (75 cents a box on sale) but I'm sure I will convince myself again when I'm starving that it is indeed a good idea.



http://www.ricearoni.com

I was thumbing through a copy of The Daily Targum (the Rutgers daily newspaper, similar to the Chronicle without the idiotic columns and letters to the editor, but many more comics) and came across a big half page spread on safety tips from the Rutgers police department. Under the last section, "what to do if attacked", here were the first two bullet points:

*Do not resist. Give up your wallet, handbag, and other personal belongings. Do not give up your life.
*Hit in vulnerable areas - eyes, groin, face, and any other unprotected areas.

I got such a huge kick out of it I showed everyone I could. Michelle and Vanessa got the biggest kick out of it. As the night went on I got more and more enjoyment out of it because I was drinking (by myself) and got kind of drunk.

Played some tennis with my newly strung raquet. This is the same raquet I've had since my senior year of high school. Since I first got it, I have never changed the grip. It has three or four white fuzz holes in the grip that are fairly large, but I refuse to get a new one. Not really sure why. Anyway, my volleys are godawful. I didn't even come to the net once in these two sets I played against one of my housemates. My luck quotient was extremely high, as I think I hit 4 or 5 shots in a row that were right on lines, including a huge topspin forehand that looked like it was going to be out by about 5 feet but instead dropped on the baseline, much to his dismay. Good times.

After the sets I got tired and started playing like an asshole.

I walked to the library to take a break and read a magazine, and in the middle of it was this small piece of paper that had a picture of George Bush peeing on the world, and it said something about how he was killing everyone. And then it linked to a website that was something like www.destroyrepublicans.com or something like that (I don't recall).

So this kind of got me thinking a little bit. These people are a bunch of idiots. They are probably thinking - well yes clearly all the world's problems are a result of our current president and his political party, so here is our best plan of action. Lets make photo copies of small pieces of paper with a poorly drawn cartoon and our website on it. Then lets go into libraries and put the pieces of paper into magazines and books! This will surely draw people to our cause!

And this doesn't even get into what a stupid waste of time it is. If you're going to advocate a cause there must be a billion better ways to do it.

Idiots.

In one of the most infuriating losses ever, my team lost to Pete and Al's team by 1.3 points (107 to 105.3 or something like that) because of the inability of Tiki Barber to gain any yards. Thanks you ass.

I have nothing much else to say today. It is a beautiful day outside so I think I'm going to try to go golfing. Although it might not be pretty since i haven't swung a club in like 3 weeks.

I miss this guy.



http://www.welovetheiraqiinformationminister.com

In my ever continuing quest to delude people into thinking I either went or currently go to Rutgers (even Michelle forgets at times), I am going to be entering an intramural doubles tennis tournament. I'm getting my raquet restrung today and all. I hope matches aren't scheduled during the normal work day.

Ho - I would almost believe the talk about the United States being so "selfish", but doesn't this country give out like billions of dollars in foreign aid to countries who suck? I wonder what our public perception would be if we instead used that money to build up our inner city school systems, or other worthwhile domestic causes.

Its Monday, so its rainy and I'm tired. Most of the weekend I spent trying to recover from my semi-sickness, but it seems to be mostly gone by now. I did manage to get another viewing of The Boondock Saints into my movie watching history, which must be the 15th time I've seen it. I have noticed that it does drag on a bit in the middle, as you kind of think that the whole movie is just going to be them killing people and getting away with it. Anyway, I made this girl in the house watch it with me and then two other people came in and were instantly thrilled that it was on, since they were big fans. I felt a little bit of vindication.

The cat and I are still at odds. I walked out of my room this morning and it was sitting there waiting for me, although it pretended it was only walking by my door. I sense a big conflict coming with this cat and I in the future, with me losing somehow.

My fantasy team did alright yesterday, except for an absolutely boneheaded move by myself of not throwing the Seattle defense against the hapless Arizona Cardinals. My matchup would be locked up by now if I had, but instead I will rely on the NY Giants defense and Tiki Barber to outpoint Joey Galloway and Jeremy Shockey. Pete puts the line at 2-1 in my favor, which is good, but not a sure thing by any means.



Go Tiki!

Three more weeks of work in Rutherford! Then its time for ultimo job in NB!

I've never lived with a pet before. But we have this enormously fat cat that lives in the house and has taken a liking towards me for some reason.

It started when on the first day it just came and laid down in my lap and then refused to move. I tried pushing it off me and then it bit me! Luckily someone else rescued me and took it away.

More recently, it jumped on my desk and, with me watching, knocked over my deodorant and a bottle of lotion into the trash can. I smacked it and then it went under my bed and hid.

And finally today, I bought some turkey bacon (it was on sale, and I'm never buying it again by the way) and was cooking it up. Suddenly the cat goes insane and starts pawing at the microwave and me, so I rip off half of a piece and put it on the ground for it. It kind of nibbles at it, so I'm thinking I need to get it into the bowl ASAP. I reach for it and it claws me! So I resolve the issue by giving it another half piece and putting that one in the bowl, while removing the piece from the ground and putting it in the trash. Outsmarted that cat good!

Well the asprin didn't help that much.

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't
mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny
iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit
pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it
wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter
by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe.

I was feeling pretty good this morning... now i'm feeling semi-ungood. Might have been the McGriddle I ate for breakfast. It was tasty though.

Went into the NB office this morning to talk about salary with my new boss. Turns out I get around a six percent raise, which is fine by me for working for six months. I'm scheduled for another review by next April, and another raise then. That works out I guess.

My boss called a meeting with the managers to inform them of my leaving. And also of her leaving to a higher position within Kaplan. That was a bit of a shocker actually. This center is in some trouble with both myself and her leaving, and the housing manager pregnant and going to take a lot of time off. Too bad you can't buy stock in something like: NJMI revenues will go down significantly in Q1 of 2004.

My car is making more troublesome noises. Now it sounds like something is lose and it clunks beneath my feet. I hope its just something loose or something, and it doesn't make that noise when I'm on the highway - only when I'm driving around a town or city. Odd.

Staying in NB for both nights this weekend. Going home Sunday to hang out with my family and watch football and have my car checked out to see if anything is obviously very loose. If not, back to the shop it goes. And back to Enterprise rent a car I go. Doh.

Chris's recent links of articles:

http://www.mudvillegazette.com/archives/000307.html

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/story.php?storyID=13852

If there is one thing I regret about Duke, its that I didn't write a column after 9/11 saying we should kick everyone's asses.

Right after it happened, our editor (the infamous John Bush) emailed all of us saying that schedules are messed up and anyone who wants to write about the incident should do so and send it to him.

If I recall correctly, approximately 402 consecutive columns came out after the incident preaching "tolerance" and "understanding" of this act. This isn't surprising since even the rallies on campus were not designed to mourn those lost, but to tell everyone to not be too angry. Eventually, Alexandra Wolfe wrote a column saying she had heard enough of it, and it was pretty much high time that someone said that. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed her saying something that was on everybody's mind.

I remember fondly an image of Alex Epstein sitting on the BC Walkway, alone, at a table, with signs saying its time for war and enough of this PC bullshit.

I remember a long email debate with some of my hippie friends from Cinnaminson who were against any type of retaliation. I wrote long sermons back at them saying how misguided they are.

I suppose its days like these that are good for remembering things.

October 6th.

That is when I start my new job as Academic Manager at the New Brunswick Kaplan center.

My duties will be to oversee a pool of forty teachers, evaluate them, have little confabs with them about what they're doing right, wrong, etc. Also, I will be responsible for recruiting new teachers and assigning teachers to classes. This position is going to rock and I'm extremely excited about it. Hell... maybe even this happy.




I'll be riding my bike to work instead of driving an hour or so, and I'll be in theory able to spend more time in Cinnaminson too. Its a shame that its going to be another month, but the light at the end of the tunnel is in sight.

In other news, I just bought an italian roasted chicken and a loaf of bread, and it was pretty good. I also bought some perdue boneless chicken breasts that were for some reason like 75 percent off, (don't expire for another week too), so it was a good day at the supermarket. Its nice and sunny outside with a high of the mid to upper 70s.

And nobody ever emails the duke email list anymore for some reason. If only I could enable comments on this blog maybe that would be the next big thing.

When I was growing up, the next town over was Moorestown, and we hated them. Everyone hated them. Delran, our archrival to the north, hated them as much as we did.

You see, Moorestown was a rich town. Everyone who lives there has a lot of money. And they beat us senseless in pretty much every sport, which only makes us more angry.

In my high school soccer career, at every level (freshman, JV, varsity), I never was on a team that beat Moorestown. My senior year I had probably our best scoring chance against Moorestown in our home game to them. We lost 1-0. They went out to win the state championship. We went on to lose in the first round to a team that was seeded 11.

In tennis they were the perennial state champs. So when I played my first year and was thrust into the second singles spot, I wasn't quite prepared to play someone who had played since they were like 5 years old. In my two matches against Moorestown tennis players (2nd singles and then 1st singles), I won a total of five games.

The only sport we defeated them in was bowling. I took a lot of pride in that, but there is an easy correlation between the wealth of your school and its bowling talent (hint: its inverse).

In short, Moorestown had more money and did a lot of things better than every other town in the area.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because in the car I was trying to think of why everyone hates the United States. I wonder if there are kids in Moorestown who actively protest their school and town being so good.

And so after a very long weekend of lots of various activities, here I am back in Rutherford for another week of mind numbing work.

Fantasy football is back in full swing and its quite the experience if you haven't had any exposure to it. My team did extremely well this week dispite everyone in the league rating it as one of the worst teams in the group. Hines Ward had 2 touchdowns and Charlie Garner had a nice game from me, and Tommy Maddox, the ex-XFL MVP and insurance salesman had a very strong game. Conversely, Ben's team did horrible which is pretty funny since it was supposed to be so good.

Saw the trailer for The Lord of the Rings - The Return of the King (off of The Two Towers DVD) this weekend too, and it looks pretty bad ass. 100,000 orcs in what is called the biggest battle scene ever on film should make it pretty damn good.

Got utterly trashed on Friday night in Cinnaminson.

Also I bought ESPN football for the Playstation 2. Its very addicting and very well done.

More to come...

Friday - I drive home and try to get a nap after dinner because i'm pretty damn tired from the Thursday night party. In walks my four year old nephew who apparently wants to watch tv with me. I go okay and wake up, and eventually my two year old niece walks in too. She begins to play with everything in my room and then I decide I need to get a shower ASAP to wake up. So I tell my nephew to watch her and go in the shower. Yes, I told my four year old nephew to watch his two year old sister. So halfway through the shower I hear this banging on the door, and I'm like, go away.

In walks my niece (the door doesn't lock) and I peek my head out to see her walking in, and I say, "get out of here Lauren. Go find your brother."

She shouts now and proceeds to open the shower curtain as much as she can.

Then I yell for Andrew to get his sister out of here. Eventually he does and I get out of the shower. Then Marty comes up to get them and asks why I left them alone to take a shower. I replied that Andrew can take care of his sister. I think he only sort of agreed.

Ah well.

So we're all standing around the office, and one of our staff members (all of them are foreign doctors who haven't yet passed their exams to become licensed to practice medicine in the US) is bragging about what a good bowler he is. He says he could roll 215 or 220 consistently, which I note is something that pros can't even do. He apparently is basing this on the fact that the last time he went bowling he rolled a 215. He is also known as being very cocky.

So I say, there is no way he could average 210 over 3 games. He says he can.

I say, "I bet you 100 dollars you won't be able to do that."

He says he will take that bet.

I say, "I'm not sure you understand me. You have to AVERAGE 210 over 3 games to win this bet."

He then reaches for my hand and shakes it.

Now the three of us who are actually from America are kind of shaking our heads. I am kind of happy about free money, and Laura afterwards is like, "I was going to see if I could go in for 50 on that. But I didn't want him to owe money to two people."

Today I walk over there and he's like, oh here is the hustler. I reply that I don't know what he's talking about. He proceeds to try to weasel out of the bet but I will have none of it. Then he starts talking about how once he loses he'll have to make up that money in some way. He says something about basketball. Apparently he believes that a 5'7" asian guy like myself couldn't possibly be any good at basketball. And he's right, but I'm not horrible, and it might just be time for $200. Oh yeah.

Is it bad to take money off of subordinates? Oh well. Maybe i'll throw a little pizza party for the staff with the leftover money.

I just bought a big loaf of garlic bread in this silvery bag, and began to eat it with lunch. It was a bit weird, seemed like there was some sort of garlic cream cheese type substance in the middle. I continued to eat.

After awhile I realized the bread should have been heated in an oven for awhile so that middle substance would melt into the bread.

I hope I don't get sick.

I love my new room.

My bed is this big futon that is nice and soft and about the size of my bed I had senior year at Duke. But softer. And lower. Its very nice after sleeping on a twin bed since I graduated.

Heather left me this really nifty desk that has all these little compartments, and a side shelf that I put my monitor on that is lower than the actual desk. So I look down at the monitor, which is kidn of weird but very cool when you get used to it.

I have a small fridge full of beer, cold cuts, and Sierra Mist, so that keeps me pretty full and buzzed.

All the posters and pictures I had are up, including this one, and this one.

There is a bookcase I created out of some wire things you fit together to make square crates. So I have lots of stuff in that, including my blue binder of everything that I like that I've written or had written about me, and lots of books. And my K-Ville 2002 mug they gave out full of hot chocolate.

The walls are painted white, the inside of the closet is painted pink, and there is this awesome dimmer for my main light in the room.

Ah home.

Site of the day:

http://www.gotfuturama.com

giddy up.

It is miserable and rainy outside. And cold. Its September 2nd and it is going up to 70 degrees today. And for some reason the AC in my office is cranked up as high as it can go. So I'm just sitting here, shivering, typing away on my computer. Trying to get some work done but instead being distracted by this Blog and IM and everything else in the world. I just ate a can of fruit cocktail for breakfast.

Now if you eat fruit cocktail, you have to get the chunky kind. I'm not sure why, but it just tastes so much better.

I'm more or less moved into my new room now. Its bigger than before and the house is not inhabited by immature lazy kids who never clean up and play bad music from their band 24/7. I have a big bed now and cable in my room, so thats pretty nifty. There are four gay people in the house (3 lesbians and 1 gay guy), so life is always interesting and funny. My chore for the first month is to take care of the front yard and front porch, which is probably easier said than done. The front porch is kind of full of all these boxes this girl left before she moved out. I'm not going to touch them.

What I ate yesterday:

Half a box of macaroni and cheese.
Honey turkey and cheese sandwich.
Two bananas.
The other half of the box of macaroni and cheese.
Chicken quesadilla from taco bell.