i was trying to read while on the treadmill in the workout room the other day. my wife, meanwhile, takes advantage of watching cable tv. somehow she found animal planet. distinctly, she has always liked those nature programs. me, i never got into them and i dont care much for australian accents. no offense dawn 9as if you even read my page0. blame it on crocodile dundee; he was pretty much my first exposure. who can blame me? anyways, some program called the jeff corwin experience was on. i couldnt read; i was totally captivated. sure i enjoy looking at snakes and bugs as much as the next guy, but big stinking whoopee. the thing that caught and held my rapt attention was that this man is so hilarious. he talks to the animals he catches and performs impersonations in front of the camera. i think in the half hour that i watched, i saw, among others, impersonations of fred munster, martin sheen in apocalypse now, shoot i cant remember the others. i should have written them down in my notebook. anyways, the man is funny. real funny. but, alas, id still prolly never flip to that channel on purpose.

topic of discussion for the week: why do so many of my blogs relate to observations in the restroom?

i want to take a few lines to talk about my repertoire. what i mean is, i hold my discussion sections four hours in a row each thursday. i usually have more or less the same stuff to discuss each hour. but beyond that, occasionally i tell some of the same jokes or anecdotes each hour and often i dont. i guess the reason i dont really like to do that is that i prefer humor of a more spontaneous nature. for this reason, id never be much of a stand up comic. i might have a really good run with something during, say, my second hour, but that doesnt mean it would come off as well during my third and fourth hours. its all about the moment, is what im trying to say. its keeps me fresh and keeps me from getting bored. another strange thing ive noticed is that when im cracking some comments and there are occasions when i really get it going and the class is pretty much in stitches, i never look at them. like i guess its really performing, cus i dont even acknowledge them, other than hearing their laughter which usually pushes me onward. but i keep telling myself to watch them laugh. i really want to see it sometime, but for some reason, i cant remember to do it in the moment. do you think thats strange? i couldnt even tell you which ones are laughing and which are sitting there smugly thinking im the biggest waste of space. i really gotta work on watching it all go down. then ill know whom to love and whom to despise.

does it strike anyone else as weird that a man should hold his coffee cup in hand while peeing at a public university urinal?

a few reflections of mine this week:

epiphany of the day (this is a semiregular feature): Quaint does not equal bad.

i was walking to the bus the other day and some fellow caught my attention to ask if i had some time. i said, no not really. he proceeded to continue on with his agenda anyhow. he asked me if i would fill out a credit card application and as a prize i would get a free carbonated artificial carmel colored beverage. i said, no i wasnt interested. my reason was short and succinct: credit cards are the devils lollipops. he then proceeded to amaze me as has been done in the past with a general appeal to philanthropy. id really be helping him out, he said, if id just fill out one of the forms. i could even right anything i wanted on it (i.e. fake addresses made up names, like debbie la poopoo (ask me about that one another time)) and id still get the soda. why? cus he gets paid for the number of filled out forms. i looked him straight in the eye and said, "Are you mad? Have you lost your mind?" at this point someone threw a lemon over head and my foes attention diverted, i skirted away.

Favorite topic of discussion of the week: Does my head look like a chili bowl?

the first week of a new school term is a fun time for me. i see roughly 160 students in the space of 4 hours on thursday. they are nothing but faces, indistinguishable in the number of eyes and noses and mouths, etc. then for a week to follow i get a host of stares and smiles as i walk across campus. ne'er a hello, however. they seem to forget that while im by trade the center of their attentions for an hour, they are just a nameless face in the audience.

we're all familiar with those childhood practices that are cute or at least acceptable, but seem somehow inappropriate upon growing older. im thinking of something like sucking the thumb. well i realized that i still engage in one such practice. no hope of changing either.

when i use the stand ups in the restroom and its time to fasten my belt, i use my chin to secure my shirt out of the way of the fastening. i confess i do feel a bit funny when folks are around, but i see no other way to do it easily. maybe i should work on my technique.

id like to take a few lines to talk about the strange subculture of dog owners among apartment residents. besides the obvious oddities of following your pooch around picking up its doos, there are some other strangeties. for example, we let them run around at the park nearby. upon running into a new dog and owner we are very eager to ask the seemingly all important question: whats your dogs name? but i dont know one name of any other dog owner. im not like the "weird one" here (cus i generally prefer not to know random peoples names) no one knows any persons name, but we can catalog alphabetically all the dogs that come out. strange indeed. i tried for so long to be on the fringe of this subculture, after all i just wanna keep my dog from peeing in the house, you know?

friday night went to a little wine and cheese gathering, in nice attire, hosted by a grad student for others. nice to see the cats dressed up. had an interesting conversation beginning with the topic of books to read. anyways, this guy was saying that if robespierre didnt get pneumonia then there wouldnt have been a french revolution. this was his argument for not believing in historical cause-effect determinism or something. anyways, this other guy was standing around and said what i would consider the best quote of the evening:
"if i were sober id disagree with you, but since im drunk i agree."

thanks for the lists. keep em coming. im compiling the grand list of suggestions. ill not omit anything except resumes for dummies and others in that series.

i had the displeasure of watching like fifteen minutes of will and grace last night in the workout room. lets just say it was a rough evening for the esteem of my cable tv workout experience. will and grace is simply not the least bit funny. every joke 9that is what i could ascertain was intended to be a joke0 plays off of the obnoxious homosexuality of each 9and i think every0 character. ill say nothing more than this: i imagine my experience watching an excerpt involving a horse with a big wiener is pretty much an accurate cross-section of every episode. theyve even stepped over the bounds of innuendo. to quote someone: what an atrorcity.

the night did round out a little better when i caught a program called music choice or something which features recorded concerts. last night: radiohead. that was good.

so heres a question for all of you...

list or email me three or so books of any topic or genre that you think everyone should read.

i apologize that my last two posts were way toooo long. im prolific, so shoot me!

im taking a class this term in mathematical logic. its an undergraduate class so i expect it shouldnt be too hard. but ive had a somewhat unpleasant experience in that class so far. no, its not that i dont like the professor or the subject. ive had no personal problems with students or anything. but i like to remain somewhat incognito as a student. i enjoy throwing out a snappy comment or a little underhanded humor every now and again, but otherwise, i like to give the appearance of being somewhat aloof (which is pretty easy since i pretty much am). i really dont like to answer questions anymore than i like to ask them. however, i am cursed as a teacher by trade to hate the silence enough to break it. please allow me to explain.

the professor of my logic class is an interactive sort. he actually looks at the students when he talks. he asks questions and anticipates response. the things he covered during the first lecture were very simple. it is not at all an oversimplification to say that what he taught us is the very basic alphabet of our subject. i may have answered a question or two, somewhat out of character, yes, but the class is very small. that was pretty much all he covered monday. the material you could read in five minutes in a textbook. today he began by reviewing these basic concepts. he opened the class by asking, "what is the alphabet of symbols in our subject?" i am confident that every single student in the class could have answered the question. yet no one did. i waited what seemed like an hour. it was probably more like ten seconds, but you know how long that is as the professor looks about the classroom inquisitively as if begging for even a bit of recognition. i could stand it no longer. i offered up a partial answer: "And" i said softly. The professor smiled and replied politely, "You've already answered all my questions, let's have someone else."

surely, you see the horror. ive already been dubbed the teachers pet and kiss-up. i tell you, i refrained from answering another of his questions, while we sat in silence for maybe fifteen or twenty seconds depending on the occasion. questions which were trivial in their asking, but elusive in the answering. im not sure how long i will be able to bear up under this load.

to make matters worse, the professor stares at me the entire time he lectures. he looks exclusively at me.

stay tuned for more acts of psychological terrorism committed against me by professors...

if you read the jan 7 post about one third of my experience at the drive in and were offended because i revealed everything about the movie i could (except for girlfriends name cus she was so awful i couldnt remember), then i accept your token of gratitude and i promise not to ruin oceans 11 for you in my comments to follow.

oceans 11 features a star studded cast including george clooney, brad pitt, matt damon, don cheadle. the film was good. i enjoyed it quite a bit, however i must differ with all the buzz that says its soooooooo good. indeed, i would extend a challenge of good ol' fashioned mud wrasslin' to anyone who says it far exceeds the 1960 rat pack version. i expect that most of the people who make such a claim read it in the paper and havent even seen the original. further, i expect that nearly the remainder havent seen the 1960 version since 1960 and prolly were trying to make the smooth moves on their girlfriends at the theatre and were horribly denied and as a result have a bad taste in their mouths about the evening as a whole, thus reflecting on the film. finally, i expect that any last handful that dont fall under the previous two cases are simply societal deviants and are trying to stir trouble. that portly fellow who reviews the features on television is most likely just such a deviant.

of course, the effects and technology allow for a more thrilling action sequence in the new oceans 11. recent directional strategies have paved the way for a quicker paced film, too, lets allow. a shining cast of fresh stars is exciting, to be sure. but lets check out some of the new films deficiencies:
elliott gould, a seasoned actor, shows potential, but severely over acts his role.
don cheadle, a man i have come to love in the last 18 months for his charisma as an actor, doesnt quite pull off a successful british accent.
andy garcia, a brilliant actor by many accounts (i like to pretend he wasnt in godfather III and i like to pretend that he was too young to know better anyway) didnt give any personality to his role. i want to empathize with the antagonist a little, dont you? and further more, who would really fight over julia roberts as a love interest anyway? might i add that she looked perhaps her worst in this picture than any (with a debatable exception being her in a fat suit in americas sweethearts).

these flaws didnt at all ruin the movie going experience for me (any more than the julia roberts thing automatically does by default), but the thing that did bother me was that new movies seriously lack the class and suaveté of the old movies expressed merely in the way the actors speak. additionally, we dont have dean martin crooning at the piano or sammy davis, jr dancing and singing E-O Eleven. The biggest let down for me was that the ending of the new oceans 11 was completely different than the old versions ending. it felt as if i went out to watch the Godfather starring Peter Falk as Don Corleone, Weird Al as Sonny, Ron Howard as Tom Hagan, Keanu Reeves as Michael, and Julia Roberts as Carla. and then at the end of the film, instead of killing off all the other families, Michael sends each a fruitcake and a al gore for president t-shirt before running off to join the peace corp.

it wasnt that i didnt like the new oceans 11; i did. all things being equal id prolly rate it at 2 slush puppies. but because it was so deficient from the original (which i would give 2.5 slush puppies), i must demote it to 1 or 1.5 slush puppies. my advice is, dont see the old version first.

well, if youre reading even this far, then you wont mind the capstone to my evening at the drive in. we decided to bring our dog along with us. mind you, hes a little larger than a lap dog. but we brought his bed along and threw him in there with us. that might have been a big mistake. you see, my dog seems to have a lot of gas, for a dog. and its pretty darn stinky. his toots used to be so bad that we would seriously have to leave the room upon the occasion. about a month ago, we changed his dog food to a brand called Oral Care by Science Diet, cus we noticed that his breath was pretty rank as well. weve also been weaning him off the wet food. anyhow, the Oral Care seems to have helped his breath tremendously. it also makes his poops easier to pick up, but thats a complaint for another time! we also noted that his gas wasnt as bad. weve changed our mind on that score, i tell you. something happened that night in the car. he was a freakin' toot machine and even this week, the awful stench lingers. weve had to stop driving the car its so bad. so consider this a plea to Science Diet to work on a new formula for Anal Care.

well, managed to see a double feature at the drive in this weekend. yeah, lets hear it for drive in movies!

if you are like me then you prefer to know very little about a movie before you see it. therefore, im going to tell you everything you need to know about the majestic before you waste your time paying for a ticket. this is the first drama ive ever given three ducks to. so read on. what a lame story (which had a bit of potential, but RUINED IT!) with some absolutely awful acting. by the end of the picture the only people not crying were the people in the audience. finally i decided to stick my fingers in my eyes, just to provoke a tear.

okay, so jim carrey plays peter appleton, an unconvictioned screenwriter who is accused of being a communist in the late fifties(?). he decides to go have too many drinks and fall off a bridge. he loses his memory and washes up on the shore of a town, where very coincidentally, he looks exactly like a boy who disappeared during the war but was never found dead. *gasp! hard to believe*. so the town convinces him hes Luke and coincidentally, his "father" runs a movie theatre. (genius, i know pure genius!). well, the town is super stoked to have Luke, who coincidentally was the town hero and favorite son, back. but theres a one-armed man named bob, who was also in the war, who doesnt believe or trust or like our new Luke. theres also, token black handyman, emmett, who secretly knows Peter isnt Luke, but doesnt tell cus of town morale. Then theres sappy bad-acting girlfriend who knows deep down the truth, but doesnt want to believe so convinces self that Peter is Luke. (very touching). Well, of course, in time Peter remembers who he is, but dad dies before he should have to find out. after, peter goes back to hollywood to face up to the commie hunters. he becomes a noble man through some lame rite of passage and becomes a national hero, just like Luke (sob). he goes back to town and one-armed bob becomes his friend.

over all it was a pleasant experience to be at the drive in, but in retrospect, id rather have at the drive in one-armed scissor than one-armed bob.

stay tuned for a less revealing commentary on Ocean's 11 and a discussion about Anal Care.

good morning, friends.

this early afternoon i was in the shower rehearsing some lines and songs from monty pythons the holy grail. i stepped out of the bathroom and was getting dressed in the bedroom, the door to which was closed, mind you (im not indecent!) while still rehearsing in a fresh british accent. as i pulled my trousers *wink* up i heard a voice coming from my living room. hello?! it said. it wasnt my wife, nay, it was a mans voice. i wasnt alarmed; come on in, i called. he said he had just finished. earlier this morning i had put in a maint'n'nce request to have my kitchen sink looked at. i imagined that he might come while i was in the shower, so i closed my door. i forgot however when i started performing under the gentle rain of the shower massager in a cheesy british accent. i hope he was entertained, after all, ill be here all week.

the motivation for this accent is due entirely to cable television. youll find no cable in our house, so we enjoy working out in the fitness center to watch things we cant watch at home. i realized while there that there does exist a second television show that i absolutely love besides, of course, seinfeld. it is whose line is it anyway. that show totally hooks me up. i even found myself clapping in laughter while watching.

yes, i sure do enjoy my occasional cable television watchery.

speaking of which, juanjohnamera, theres a comment for you!

as if waking from a coma...

one of these days i think ill blog again.

for now...that is all.