I encourage anyone who has not seen "Lost in Translation" to rent it as soon as possible.

I'm frustrated by school. I'm behind in nearly all of my classes; I was unprepared for tests in all my subjects last week. I've been studying and going to class all week this week, but one week is a drop in the bucket. We already have another exam next week in one of my classes, and this is the first day I've taken notes since the last one. plus, I haven't been studying my japanese very hard at all. hard work may pay off later, but laziness is immediately gratifying.

A friend of mine loaned me a small book full of Zen parables, koans, and other stories. I read a few of them every night before I go to bed, and I've dog-eared a few of my favorites already. One of them goes a bit like this:

There were two great Zen teachers, one a wandering monk, and the other a teacher at the local university. The teacher lived a life of the flesh: he slept during the daytime if he felt like it, and he drank wine if he felt like it. The monk lived a much more ascetic life; he ate and drank at regular intervals, and never touched alcohol. The monk came to visit the teacher one afternoon, and found him drinking wine. The teacher, always generous, offered his cup to the monk. "Sir, I mean no disrespect, but I cannot indulge myself in such libations," said the monk.
    "One who does not drink wine must not be human," said the teacher.
    The monk became incensed. "How dare you! To suggest that I am inhuman because I will not drink your wine?! If that makes me inhuman, then I ask you, what am I?"
    The teacher smiled. "A Buddha."

It's midnight, and all the results from the Democratic primaries/caucuses are in. John Edwards wins South Carolina and loses Oklahoma by the thinnest of margins. Howard Dean still has yet to win a state, and John Kerry... well, nuts to him.

Ever since before the primaries started, the US media has portrayed Howard Dean as an angry, frustrated man with a big chip on his shoulder. I think that if I were Gov. Dean, I would just now be getting angry. Perhaps he is - with Chris Matthews on MSNBC tonight, he grabbed control of the interview a couple of times to remind anyone who was listening that he was the only candidate who had done any of the things that all of them are promising (balance a budget, provide universal health care, etc.). I think the governor is getting a raw deal, and if I were him, I'd be pretty pissed, too.

This "electability" business is nonsense. The United States is practically split down the middle, political-preference-wise. If the mantra is "how can we beat that smirking, nepotist frat boy," then he still gets to steer the debate. A campaign based on "No, you're wrong, you idiot" probably won't win an election. What if it does? What if the most electable candidate turns out to be the one that's most like Bush, but not quite Bush? You mean like John Kerry? Great. Then we get a Democratic president who screws us sideways from the other direction, after smiling and taking all kinds of money from the individuals who run political action committees instead of the committees themselves.

This is not a current-events primer, I promise.

*sigh* All I can think to write about is how angry I am at various parts of American government. I don't think that's very productive, though, so maybe I'll just call it a day.

(I still don't have a social security card. I just haven't needed it, I guess, and it's safer knowing that nobody can steal it.)

4:36 pm

I've been trying to go home for almost an hour, but I keep missing the buses. I have seven minutes to finish this and get outside.

Ralph Engelstad died recently. Who, you ask? Ralph Engelstad, the proprietor of the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas, as well as other properties around the country. He donated a $104 million hockey arena to the local college. He is also a staunch supporter of the UND Fighting Sioux nickname (which many people think is racist and stereotypical, among other things), and resorted to childlike tactics in order to ensure that the Fighting Sioux name and indian head logo would remain a part of UND and especially his arena (logos in the hallway walls every few feet, an indian head on the back of every seat).

He was an old man, 73 years old, IIRC. Lived a long and full life, but never could quite grasp the concept that if you're saying/doing something that offends someone else, it's polite to stop. Thank you, Ralph, for a world-class hockey facility... and for demonstrating that having lots of money lets you be as petty as you care to, without consequence.

Also, the identity of the 31337 h4x0r has been revealed to me... and you're not so 1337 after all. *pthblththt*

I promise to write more tomorrow.

11:58 pm

The 31337 h4x0r strikes again. I must have been in a hurry.

I've been playing Warcraft 3 for the last four hours. I still haven't beaten the computer. Laugh and call me l4m3, but I just can't do it. I came close the last time, but every time I tried to take the Orc stronghold, some stupid blademaster zoomed in, morphed into five of himself, and chopped my poor army to bits. Then he took the last remaining two gold mines... and the rest was history. Maybe the humans are just inherently weak... or I am.

The Vikings won today; beat the 8-1 Green Bay Packers 31-21. Talk about your bizarre upset - Brett Favre was intercepted 3 times today, bringing his total for the year to 7. Not a good day for Pack fans; it started my sunday off on a positive note, though. UND's hockey team won both their games this weekend, and hometown boxer hero Virgil Hill was victorious tonight against whoever he fought. Big surprise. ^_^

The kindness of strangers amazes me sometimes.

savekaryn.com pulled Karyn out of $10,000 of credit card debt. I have nowhere near that much financial obligation, so if I opened a Web site asking for money, would that make my odds better or worse?

It's late and I'm tired/hungry/beaten down... so ttfn, and I'll even log out this time.

8:30 pm (approximately)

To the 31337 h4x0r who wrote in my journal last thursday: your kung fu is the best. I surrender. Oh, and you forgot to log me out, too.

I apologize to the two people reading this for my lack of update. Moreso, I'm sorry that my thoughts have had nothing but my brain to bounce around in for all these days. And still, when faced with the great white screen of my journal, I can't think of anything to write.

You know those optical illusions made up of 25 blue squares, and if you look at the picture, you see little gray spots between the squares except for when you try to look directly at the gray spots? That's how my brain works. As long as nobody puts me on the spot, I'm in good shape.

*sigh*

Nothing is coming to mind. I think I just have to get in the routine of writing things every day.

This morning I woke up early enough to get my freshly pressed pants and tie from the cleaners, come home, shower, and have coffee... and then sit around for an hour and a half before a job interview. The temp agency I applied to seemed to be falling over themselves to place me somewhere; you'd think they never saw someone who could type and use Windows before. I have to go back tomorrow morning with two forms of ID and possibly a full bladder; there are signs everywhere hinting that illegal drug use is not tolerated. Most of the jobs there are manual-labor type jobs... harvest work, construction, janitorial, things like that. Call me a nutty leftist liberal, but I think the guy who sits at a conveyor belt for ten hours a day watching potatoes go by has more right to go home and light up a spliff than most people do. His job is probably pretty unfulfilling, and he smells like potatoes or bleach or something all the time. Give the guy a break, and save the drug tests for people whose work can cause physical or significant financial harm to innocent bystanders if they've, oh, say, been awake for 38 hours and rely on ephedrine and prescription amphetamines to stay awake and do their jobs. You know, like the resident physician examining you when you're in the ER with all manner of broken bones... because your cab driver was "a little drunk" and went through a red light. That, and pre-employment drug screens are statistically more likely to prevent the impoverished from getting a job than the middle-class or wealthy, and I, for one, would like the poor to get meaningful jobs and feel good about themselves. Maybe they wouldn't turn to selling crack and shooting each other, or pretending to be Nigerian attorneys.

I'm wearing my "nice shoes." I've often blithely said that I would never sacrifice comfortable footwear for the sake of appearance, and now I'm eating a veritable feast of crow; the dress clothes lose their edge when combined with ratty, worn-out Vans. Instead, my feet ache and my heels are being chafed by a pair of wingtips that haven't seen the light of day in well over a year. At least they still look nice.

On the list for this week:

Apply for new Social Security card. (yes, I know that's an old one, but election week damn near killed me)

Reach my aerobic-exercise-program goal. (I signed up to do this StairMaster(tm) thing at my health club where I go 20 minutes a day 5 days a week. Well, election week fscked that all up, and I'm just now starting to get back into my exercise routine. Luckily, every 20 minutes during this last week of the program counts double, so I'm not SOL just yet.)

Quit smoking. My pack ran out at about 5:45 tonight, and I think that's it. Cigarettes are icky, expensive, and they disqualify me from becoming a research specimen for a couple of medical studies happening soon that would secure my financial future. A couple of my acquaintences are full-time research specimens, and they get by; it's something to think about, as long as they aren't jabbing me with needles and making me run on treadmills all the time.

Lofty goals, yes, but there are only three of them. Gotta keep it manageable.

Website of the day: bestbuysux.org. A friend of mine told me a horrible story about a laptop he bought there whose product service plan would not cover his now-broken monitor.... repairs would cost more than the computer did, and he is (understandably) a bit miffed.

Wow, this was easy.

footnote, 11:31 pm

I'm logging off now. Thank you, 31337 h4x0r.

(This weblog was designed to stimulate and enhance your sexual enjoyment as well as to inform and educate.)

12:48 pm

Election Day was yesterday. Results are hardly final, but we can say with some certainty that the Republicans won - they picked up two seats in the Senate giving them the majority, and also won several House seats to pad their majority there.

Nuts. The Youth Measure failed, North Dakota will likely soon be participating in a multi-state lottery a la Powerball, and lands owned by conservation groups that were previously exempt from income tax are now taxable.

All in all, a depressing night.

More later...

9:34 pm

Tomorrow is Election Day.

This morning, I had woken up early to take care of a few errands before work, and had written a short entry about one of the measures on the ballot here in North Dakota. Never got to save it, and now I've changed my mind.

In that entry, I also promised that I would share my picks for the handful of elections I selected by drawing cards from a deck.

Without further ado... some coin-flip guesses as to election results on Tuesday:

Minnesota Senate, Walter Mondale (D) / Norm Coleman (R): Mondale. He performed beyond expectations in his only debate before Election Day, and will probably carry some who would have otherwise voted for the late Sen. Paul Wellstone. If the race is too close to call, expect a brouhaha over absentee ballots a lá Florida in 2000; any ballots cast for Sen. Wellstone will not be counted, and there were only 11 days between his death and Nov. 5th. Most likely there will be many Democrat votes which do not count, and ballots modified to show Mondale as the candidate trickling in after Tuesday.

Colorado Senate, Tom Strickland (D) / Wayne Allard (R): Allard. I haven't been following this one very closely, but the little bit of buzz I've heard indicates a strong right-leaning (and voting) trend in CO. Also, incumbents enjoy a slight advantage in races that are as close as this.

New Jersey Senate, Frank Lautenberg (D) / Doug Forrester (R): Lautenberg. He's been leading most of the race since replacing Sen. Bob Torricelli, and I have a feeling he'll take this one all the way.

North Dakota House, Earl Pomeroy (D) / Rick Clayburgh (R): Pomeroy. Clayburgh hasn't run a very strong campaign, and President Bush didn't speak in ND at all; perhaps the Republicans feel that this race is already lost...?

That's all I feel like doing. Everybody go vote.

10:54 am

Tomorrow is Election Day. This is like the Super Bowl for political geeks like the people I work with. Naturally, I'll be posting my picks for tight Senate and House races, and maybe a couple of my favorite gubernatorial races as well... but not until tonight.

Otherwise, nothing really of note to write about. I took the advice of a friend and, instead of buying toys, sprung for a quality parka. it's turning out to be a good idea - the temperature rarely gets above 30 degrees F (-1c - 0c) during the day... and it's only november. There's a proposed initiative on the North Dakota ballot to give anyone between the ages of 21 and 29 who graduates from a ND 4-year college a $1,000 state tax credit and, if their loan is with a ND bank, $1,000 a year of loan forgiveness. The idea is that it will coax younger people into sticking around and making North Dakota as cultured as, say... Minneapolis. Want to get people to stay in ND? Weather control, at least. The measure is popular among Democrats, but Republicans insist that the measure does not directly create any new jobs, and will cost at least $55 million dollars, which is dangerous because there is no outlay in the budget for this program. I will be voting for this measure; it is an investment in our colleges and our state, and any investment worth its salt in possible gain is usually met by equal risk. Young people who stay in the state for five years are likely to start businesses themselves or sign on with companies new to the region, as well as build homes and start families. As these people pay taxes on income that reflects their education, the state will recoup its losses culturally as well as financial.

Election results later tonight!

6:08 pm

I'm at work. Now that I have an "audience," I suppose I should share that I'm working for the North Dakota Democratic party, canvassing neighborhoods door-to-door, asking people how they plan to vote. Tonight it was chilly and raining (and it hailed for ~five minutes), and I guess there must be something about pathetic-looking campaign workers standing in the rain that makes the general public want to close their doors before hearing my story.

8:44 pm

On Sunday I didn't have it in me to go to work. I called in with the excuse that I had fallen down a flight of stairs and injured my ankle, which meant I couldn't walk the streets. Today at work, to preserve the legitimacy of my excuse, I hobbled about a bit and tried to behave as though I had twisted my ankle and it still hurt... well, halfway through the night, to my surprise, my right ankle ached... badly. In fact, I was favoring it the rest of the evening without fabrication. George Costanza says it's not a lie if you believe it... could I have fooled myself into actually being hurt, because I wanted to perform authentically? On the other hand, maybe limping is actually bad for the joints. I suppose the lesson to be learned is to not fake physical injury to get out of work.

Tonight, at midnight, there is a special showing of Jackass at the local theatre for anyone with a UND student ID willing to show up. I suspect they will run out of tickets pretty quickly, and plan on securing a seat early, even if that means sitting in the lobby playing Bejeweled for half an hour. Free Jackass? Hell, I'd stand in line just to watch the midget kick himself in the head again. erm.... no, I wouldn't.

Oh, and the Canon G2 has a physical lens focal length equivalent to between 34 and 102mm. Something like 3x real zoom, plus 7 more digital (which is cheating, yes). BUT... the G2 is way cheaper than the CP5700, and I can get all the nifty telephoto lenses I would ever need if I spring for a $22 adapter. Oh, and steves-digicams.com has the best camera reviews I've ever seen.

That's enough. I figure I've only two hours of Warcraft III time before I need to call a cab and make the movie. only? It's been a while since I've played a game that makes me think, "oh no!! I only have four hours before the lab closes!!" It's nice in a way, but maybe I should hold off on Animal Crossing...

11:12pm

If you've been living under a rock for the past week, here's a bit of sad news: Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash on the 25th. I heard the news from a friend as I was shopping for gloves at Sears; I was shell-shocked, to put it mildly. Not knowing what else to do, I wandered around the mall and gazed blankly at a display of televisions tuned to CNN Headline News, hoping that perhaps some new information would trickle out. Upon arriving at work, I did my best to hit up the Senate and Wellstone's own Web sites... they must have been swamped with traffic, for all I saw were 404s. Sure put a damper on the afternoon's canvassing, and cast a gray pallor over a mostly gray week. I'm somewhat perplexed; a very charming, pleasant, easygoing fellow I knew died a few weeks ago from complications arising from a heart condition; I didn't know him very well, but we got along fairly well considering the circumstances, and I read about his death in the local newspaper. Other than the "oh, that's too bad" one feels when they hear of someone's passing, I wasn't really grief-stricken. When Sen. Wellstone died, I was... well, blown away. I suspect it has something to do with the senselessness and total randomness of a plane crash; there was no underlying illness or danger to his well-being, just a twist of fate that will doubtlessly change the face of Minnesota and the Senate... hopefully for the better, but I suspect for the worst. Go Walter Mondale.

Everything is gray. The sun came out for maybe four hours this week, and it's getting cold... cold enough that I can't do my job without gloves. Snow came down a couple of times, but not enough to stick around. Must have rained today; I called in lazy to work and slept all day. I haven't really been home in the last couple of days; busy with work and play... none of which really ever involves the home any more. Tonight I have to go home, if for no other reason than to recharge the PDA and cellphone, both of which are beeping warnings at me whenever I try to use them. I think it's time for me to move out (again); tempting half-drunk offers were made to me the other night to move in with a few of my friends. Rent is cheap, and I don't have that much junk to move... and maybe I'd be able to get some peace and quiet without having to hide in a computer lab. I hope I can find some decent work after the election.

I had no tax liability last year, and so I did not have to file my income tax return by April 15th. How about that? I still haven't gotten around to it, which is stupid, because all I have to do is drop off some forms at the federal building and I'll get a refund in the neighborhood of $50. Why I'm not taking free money is beyond me.

List of projects for this week:

1) File taxes
2) Apply for new Social Security card (I hid mine so well even I cannot find it)
3) Search for fulfilling post-November 5th employment - as cliche and obvious as it sounds, it really enhances the quality of one's life to be doing something that has a larger purpose... the service industry is fine, but one's outlook improves greatly when they look forward to going to work in the morning.
I'm looking into acquiring a digital camera; a friend of mine has the Canon G2 and is really pleased with it... I played with it for a few minutes and was very impressed, and am now considering getting one of my own. On the off chance that someone is reading this, input is appreciated.

11:31pm

The Panasonic GameCube Q is unbelievably cool.

Still can't stop listening to the new Underworld album, Hundred Days Off.

Hope to get this into a more daily-musings sort of format, but I had a couple of things on my mind that I wanted to fling out into the great electronic ether. Like many weblogs, this is mostly for my own benefit, but if other people find joy in reading about the mundane aspects of the lives of strangers (or maybe friends)... awesome.