Gone

Gone going gone everything gone give a damn. – Jack Johnson

I’m heading to San Diego starting Saturday with Nate, Katie, Charlie and Janelle. We’ll be back Friday. I’ll be sure to take pictures!

Society, socializing, sociability and community

A band I like, Wookiefoot, sings a song that has lyrics I really like: “Come unity come unity, come unity, come.” The idea is that we need to make ourselves part of our community, whether that’s local or global.

This point was illustrated to me recently when I went down to the park to toss the frisbee around with some friends. My sister and her friend came, then we had another buddy show up by car and one more a half hour later by bike. The day was the first beautiful Wisconsin day we’ve had in a long time, and the park began filling up: three girls kicking a soccer ball here, two games of hoops there, even a guy plowing through the ice on the lake with his kayak (crazy). There were probably seven other groups playing frisbee, ranging in size from two to six people per group.

Since the ability to throw a frisbee halfway decent is about all it takes to play ultimate, we decided to try forming a game. As we went from group to group, one after another said they weren’t interested in playing. We got two groups of two and absorbed one other from a group of six while two more groups had good reasons for deferring. Overall it was a poor-sized game relative to the number of people in the park who could actually toss a disc.

I wonder if this is another sign that our generation is unwilling to socialize. I’ve read theories by some who suppose that the loss of community is the death of every society. I notice everywhere that neighbors are usually unwilling to socialize unless forced. True block parties rarely happen (unless you call the drunkfest that is the Mifflin Street block party a genuine block party.) Our sociable neighbors back at my parents’ house are leaving and being replaced by people who keep to themselves. Even the neighbors upstairs in my apartment rarely make the effort to talk. Granted, I haven’t often initiated contact with them, but still, chance meetings should be conducive to more than a simple grunted “Hi.”

To add to that, my generations’ sense of social responsibility seems to be low. Volunteerism and activism seem to be things of the past. I still see people volunteer, but it seems that all too often it’s for class credit or resume padding. Todd Gitlin made me aware of the bigger form of activism that goes on. We spend money to show our support for causes rather than activating to make changes. Think of the red “AIDS ipod”, $5 of which goes to AIDS research, or fair trade coffee or any number of other spending choices. While I don’t mean to bash this kind of spending (because it is worth the consciousness), I feel that promoting capitalism for the sake of helping others doesn’t quite make sense. Why not take a role in the community and working with people directly? Work at a food shelter once a week, do some kind of counseling or perform another selfless act.

Am I completely off base? Are college students becoming more active in relieving the world’s problems? Are university students becoming more caring instead of less caring?

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RIAA boycott and (yikes!)

Gizmodo has an RIAA boycott in effect. Try it out! I rarely buy CDs, but I’ll start being more conscious. Anyone who reads this, let me know if you’re going to do it!

Also, looking at digg, I found a story about how a woman is allergic to electromagnetic waves. holycrapcheckitout. She gets skin rashes and her eyelids swell to three times their normal size. Now you see why … (yikes!)

Oh cruddy crud, dental school

 Remember when I wanted dental school? Yeah, I do, too. Those were fond memories… kind of. I’m always entertained by the searches that bring up my blog. If you pray to the Google gods, “please god let me into dental school”, (not as a phrase), my blog comes up. The second entry is the following hilarious link:

Tales from the Dental Crypt

Regina, Regina

I needed my Regina Spektor fix since I (ironically) lost all of my ripped mp3s upon attempting to back them up. I went and got the streaming live show recorded by Bob Boilen’s All Songs Considered on NPR.

Spektor’s songwriting prowess makes her one of my all time favorite artists. Here are the lyrics to her song “Sailor Song” from her 2004 album Soviet Kitsch. (I tried to fix up the lyrics as best as I could since the lyrics sites are so awful. It seems like once one person posts incorrect lyrics, they all do. I used the live NPR version to fix the lyrics, so a couple nuances might be wrong, but these are oodles better than the ones I found through Google.)

Sailor Song by Regina Spektor

She will kiss you ’til your lip bleeds
But she will not take her dress off,
Americana, tropicana,
All the sailor boys have demons
They sing “Oh Kentucky why did you forsake me
If I was meant to sail the sea?
Why did you make me?
It should’ve been another state
Oh state…”
Cause Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch.

Does it matter that our anchors
couldn’t even reach the bottom
of a bath tub?
And the sails reflect the moon
It’s such a strange job
Playing black jack on the deck,
Atop this giant puddle, dressed in white
We quietly huddle with our missiles
And we miss the girls back home
Oh home sweet home
Cause Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch!

‘Cause she will kiss ’til your lip bleeds
But she will not take her dress off
Americana,
tropicanamericana,
tropicanamericana,
Americano.

Lurk-o-matic

I learned recently through navigating the blogosphere that a lurker is one who views blogs, but fails to post comments on those blogs. More specifically (says Wikipedia), a lurker is one who views any of a number of self-published internet media types, but “rarely participates”.

I have reason to believe that there is a lurker viewing this very blog. I get stats on the blog, and I can see hits, as well as search engine terms used to find me. A lot of those terms are for things I’m obsessed with, like Arrested Development references. Others are for obscure things like songs by Godspeed You Black Emperor. Yet there is one search term that makes me suspicious: “co, the badger”. Very few of my friends know about this blog, as I haven’t made it public while I’ve been making my transfer from my old blog. In fact, I’d put money down that there are only two or three people who know about it. I can only think of one name right now, though.

Anyways, I don’t care if you tell me who you are or not, but stop lurking and start commenting. You can do it anonymously, you know. You are my only regular reader, after all.

Well, another completely exhausting day. Time to hit the hay (before 11:00 tonight! YAY!) A lot of interesting projects are boiling in my brain stew. I’ll let them out soon, my pretties! MUAHAHAHAHA!

Will Arnett

Apparently I come up to some degree in searches for Will Arnett and GOB Bluth. Will, if you ever Google yourself (and of course you do), know that you are the glory that made the Bluths so dysfunctional. And my last name is Arnett… and I was GOB for Halloween… and I know that Blades of Glory kicks ass… and we all miss Devo.

Some pictures for evidence:

Life Goes On

This last (half)week is in the running for worst of the year… already. There must be a song out there that illustrates how I feel right now. When I’m having a bad day, I always think of the book “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” by Judith Viorst. Alexander has a series of awful things happen to him in one day. As I recall, he gets gum stuck in his hair, has to visit the dentist and had to face a number of other horrible things. In the end, he decides the best thing to do is move to Australia. I’m not sure when (or how) it gets happy, but for me, the moral is that as shitty as it gets, tomorrow is another day to make a change and to live differently.

My Example:

• Thursday: parted ways with latest girlfriend (broke up, her choice)
• Friday: worked 9 to midnight shift at quasi-fast food job
• Saturday: early morning, hung out at a party with my sister and three friends. was as fun as could possibly be considering circumstances until I chipped front tooth on 40oz while dancing. fun resumed shortly thereafter upon consumption of more of the contents of said 40oz. went home and slept. woke up still tounging chipped tooth. did dishes with overall pointless day that should have involved studying for genetics exam and nursing assistant quiz. accepted offer from fruit stand guy to start at fruit stand on Monday. studied at coffee shop for genetics exam.
• Sunday: went to work at quasi-fast food restaurant at midnight to work until 3am (bar time shift) which turned out to really be 4pm due to daylight savings time. got out at 4pm, went to sleep at 6am due to coffee consumed at 11pm. woke up at 12pm. got out of bed at 2pm. began studying for genetics exam around whenever. never really studied hard. went to bed by midnight.
• Monday: woke up at 6am. note this is same as bed time on Sunday. worked at fruit stand… a positive, enjoyable experience. went to genetics class. took genetics exam at 2pm because nursing assistant class interfered with evening exam time. maybe actually did ok on exam. had another quiz in nursing assistant class. did well. here I sit.

The week actually did improve a little, despite a lack of sleep. I don’t mean to oversimplify my breakup. It’s much more complicated than presented, but the story isn’t meant for public eyes.
Three items more interesting than my current personal dilemmas:

Gerald Cox of the Badger Herald wrote an interesting piece on Burak Obama, Sen. Joe Biden’s “controversial” comments on him and why people love him so much. I like Cox’s writing, as he’s often insightful and doesn’t jump to crass conclusions.

DePauw Cuts Ties With Controversial Sorority

Delta Zeta at Depauw just helped ruin the Greek image further. Thanks a lot, girls. I’d call you women if you acted like them. I wonder how such a governing body could cut so many people loose. Did they get a majority vote on all of those women? I admire the women who resigned after the fact, too. (Note: this has so much to do with a recent post of mine on college narcissism.)

From In Moderation: the very first (design of an) Apple Computer. It was called the Apple I and 200 were made in 1976 by Steve Jobs, Ronald Wayne and Steve Wozniak. Jobs needs no introduction, but in case you didn’t know, the less famous Wozniak helped found Apple, then moved on and Ronald Wayne was a “third founder” who is hardly know, though I heard him on NPR recently. Funny, I remember using Apple IIgs’s in school, but I never stopped to think that there might have been a I at one point.

The Consumerist Reports on Charter Communications

I was horrified to read this exchange with a Charter Communications customer service rep, as reported by The Consumerist.

This reminds me of another instance that occurred in Madison as relayed by Laura Kalinowski of the Daily Cardinal.