Like Courtney, I will be returning to friends-only as well. So please sign up so you can keep reading :)

Ahhh, the lazy days of summer have been something of a mixed blessing to Courtney and I. Some of the good is that I have been working out almost daily, mixing both skateboarding and DDRing. I have even almost mastered the ollie, I am hoping to take a little video and post it sometime this week. Plus I have been playing a bunch of videogames and reading a bunch. We went to the library and I got some new books to read, however I looked over the books I have and I realized that I am in the middle of at least 6 different books right now. If I do one thing good this summer it will be finishing some of those off so I can get myself right in the middle of 4 or 5 new books ;)

The best thing is having Courtney around all the time. I hadn't really realized how stressful it had been having her so far away. Between school and the traveling back and forth I hadn't had time to think about how much I disliked the situation. Now we are spending 24 hours a day together and that has been the cause of some stress.

It really is kind of strange living with someone when neither of you are working. Most people who live together have jobs so they spend a good deal of time outside of the house, but Courtney and I spend all of our time together. This much time together combined with us re-acclimatizing ourselves to living together has led to some petty bickering. But as we get more used to being around each other every day gets better and better, and even though we have been having some petty fights it is still great to be living with her again and it just reinforces my love for her.

Speaking of jobs, Courtney has been having all kinds of problems with her internship with Walgreens. Subsequently, we sat down and tried to figure out if it would be possible for her to not have to work this summer. After crunching the numbers, we found that if we can live on $80 a week or less we could make it through this summer on what money we already have and my work. This doesn't seem entirely unreasonable to me but it does cause some trouble for Courtney as her #1 free time activity is shopping, and for less than $80 a week including groceries the only shopping she will be doing will be at Goodwill. So she is looking into maybe working 15-20 hours a week to earn shopping money.

LINKS

This first one is really for Joseph, what Sci-Fi might have been like if it had originated in Japan. The detail this author goes into is truly amazing, it includes so-called early texts and ‘scholarly debates’ over the value of different texts (particularly the Call of Cthulu).

Next up is a crazy Japanese competition Sumo wrestlers compete to make babies cry. WTF Japan, WTF.

You may have heard of A.L.I.C.E. the artificial intelligence chat-bot that can talk to you, well apparently someone pitted A.L.I.C.E. against Jabberwacky, another chat-bot, and the results are pretty strange.

Finally the Clio Awards were just given out and the winner for print media is hilarious! I am going to go have to buy some 42 Below vodka now.

My roommate left for the summer today (he is driving back to Cincinnati for the summer) so Courtney and I are finally alone. It really signals to me that the year is over. Up to this point it kind of just seemed like a long weekend, but with Scott officially gone it is clear that the year is over. Which is definitely a bittersweet feeling. I am glad to have the time to take a break but it is weird to know that I won't be returning to philosophy graduate school, particularly because I met some really cool people and I won't really be interacting with them any more. Here's hoping that I find some non-"gunners" in law school.

In other summer news I found out that I got the job grading standardized tests! While I am not in love with the work (I just finished grading tests!!) I can't complain about the schedule. I don't even start training until May 31st, then it will be 5-6 weeks of 40 hour weeks with pretty good pay. This means I will have a nice little break between school and work, and then another break between work and the beginning of next semester. So even if it sucks really bad there is a set end point that I will be able to look forward to.

Changing the subject I have noticed that a lot of the WC bloggers have been taking their blogs private. I am sure they aren't aware of this but in order for unregistered users to view LiveJournal blogs you have to set your blog as public. So, I would like to ask the WC readers to join LiveJournal. Its easy, its quick, and it will actually benefit both you and us LJers. As a member you will be able to create one page with all of your LJ friends, so instead of going from one blog to the next you can see all of our blogs on one page with a pretty layout that you choose. You don't need to migrate your blog over, just join so you can friend us.

Once everyone has joined up we can take our blogs private again, which in turn will allow us to write funnier stuff because we won't have to worry about anyone that can get us in trouble reading our blog (like students for example). So please sign up, then friend me or drop me a comment with your LJ name :)

To wrap up, I finally bought a Dance Dance Revolution dance pad. The following is a collection of some of the Engrish that was actually written on the instructions:

Do not keep it in the quite high or low temperature environment, especially far away from fireplace.

High technology product, do not apart, separate or fix it anyway. Or the damage can not be guaranteed.

Please do not jump strongly, that may bring troubles to the other person.

Make sure to pave the cushion.

Gotta love those high technology products, just make sure to pave them.

Deadlines, or benchmarks, in Iraq have become the big buzzword in Washington DC. As congress battles over passing a budget that includes set guidelines for troop withdrawal, the white house battles furiously trying to get a "clean" budget, one without any restrictions. While the democrats see benchmarks as one way to hold the Bush administration accountable for the war they began, the republicans consider benchmarks one more step toward surrender and defeat. However, I think that even the arguments that are supposedly against benchmarks actually support a timed withdrawal.

The basic argument offered by those opposed to set dates for withdrawal is that the insurgents will just lay low until the troops leave, and then attack in full force once Iraq is undefended. This could actually be one of the best things that could happen to the war. Imagine 6 months where our troops and their Iraqi counterparts could work unimpeded. Troops and police officers could be trained without the worry of assassinations, public works projects could be completed without sabotage, and life could be returned to some normalcy in Iraq. At the end of the 6 months the Iraqis could have a well-trained army and police force, and many could have reliable energy and water.

If the insurgents returned at this point and began again to indiscriminately kill Iraqis and destroy public works, the Iraqis would turn the ire they had directed against Americans to the insurgents. The Iraqis are angry with Americans now because we have turned Iraq into a violent and chaotic nation, if we were instead viewed as the bringers of stability we would be able to win over the citizens of Iraq. In other words it is hard to be angry at the person who has made your streets safer, given you clean water, and ensured that you have reliable electricity.

As I see it there are two possible rebuttals to this argument. The first would be that their would still be random violence on a scale large enough to impede our progress. If this is so then it would seem that the insurgents either aren't as large a problem as they are made out to be, seeing as how their absence would not affect the situation greatly, or it is disingenuous to say that they will die down. In either case it would make the objection to time tables moot.

The second rebuttal would be to say that we wouldn't be able to complete that much in 6 or 8 months, that the repairs and training that need to be done are so great that we would not be able to make a large amount of progress in that short a time span. If this is the case then it would seem that success in Iraq may not be possible at all. If we can't complete a large amount in 6 months, unimpeded by insurgents, then how are we going to complete these same repairs with the insurgents? At this point we would need to consider either complete witdrawal or the possibility of being in iraq for many years to come.

If my argument works then setting time tables would give us the time needed to make great strides in Iraq, and would leave us with the ability to focus on their political turmoil.

Yay!! I am all done with my papers for this semester! And it is all because of Courtney's help. I had written a mediocre 8 page paper about Karl Marx, and then I had Courtney proof-read it with me. After 2 hours of hard-core revisions I ended up with a 10 page paper that was clearer, more succinct, and with a much stronger argument.

Can I tell you how much I love this woman? Aside form continually telling me how much she hated communism, she tried really hard to understand my paper even though she was all done with school (and clearly burned out on school). She then helped me throw in about 1,000,000 commas (since I apparently hate that form of punctuation and never use it), and expand/clarify my argument. It was awesome.

I am pretty sure this is the best paper I have written in a long time and it is all because she made sure that it was as good as it could be. Joy!

Now all I have left is to blast through 60 finals and this semester will be officially over :)

Some of you may remember my friend/ex-roommate Natalie (that I will not call ugly no matter how much Courtney prods me too, no matter how cute she is while doing it). She would sometimes come into the WC to smoke hand-rolled cigarettes with me and she ended up living in my house with my friend Matt and I for about 8 months. After I graduated she helped me get a job working at a not-for-profit which was also a dentist's office which was also the location that Natalie gave massages in (it was a unique work environment).

After we both went to grad school we pretty much fell completely out of touch. However, I still have breakfast with my old boss who gets to hear all of the news whenever Natalie comes back for a visit. Within the last 10 months Natalie has gotten 1. Pregnant and 2. Married, in that order and apparently it has completely changed her. Which has, in turn, entirely changed my opinion of her.

I always saw Natalie as a fiercly independent, intelligent woman. Someone who would tread her own path no matter how difficult it got (sometimes with an obstinancy that was astounding). However, I have trouble maintaining respect for someone in a relationship that leads to an unplanned pregnancy, and then gets married because of it. It is so simple for either partner in a relationship to prevent a child that it you almost have to try to get pregnant these days. Natalie has appeared to blithly trip down this path.

The fact that the pregnancy has completely changed her also diminishes my consideration of her. I understand that a pregnancy might soften an individual, or make them more aware of the good things in life, any truly radical change strikes me as someone who only had a front she showed to others. One of the things that I had always admired about Natalie was how she seemed to be so authentic, and this severly makes me readjust that belief.

More than anything else I am somewhat disappointed. Someone that I had honestly considered to be one of the most unique and interesting people I know has taken steps that lead me to believe that in fact she was just posing and is truly no more individual than anyone else. Which kind of just makes me dislike the world a little bit more.

Luckily I still have my super-cutie to keep me happy :)

So my worst day ever ended up being a bit of a roller coaster ride. I spoke with the director of graduate studies for the philosophy department and it turns out that it will be super easy for me to get a dual JD and MA in philosophy. I only need to take one required logic course to fulfill the course requirements! Other than that I can use 3 hours of law school classes to cover three elective hours and then I just have 6 hours of masters research. It will be a walk in the park really (as long as I come up with good MA papers).

However, Courtney took me out to dinner to make up for our not being able to have lunch, and things quickly went downhill from there. I ordered my usual (chimichangas naturally) and they were pretty good, though I noticed that the sour cream tasted a little weird so I only had one bite of it. Dinner ended and I was exhausted from my day, but strangely the world started to spin just a little bit. We drove home and got up to my room and as soon as I hit the bed I was overcome by crushing nausea. Whenever I opened my eyes it looked like the world was spinning around my head.

I promptly regurgitated everything that I had eaten for dinner and then laid down, whimpering to try and get to sleep. Courtney looked online and found that my symptoms were a perfect match for Staphyloccocus Aureus, a type of food poisoning that can last as long as two days! Luckily, I woke up today feeling fine, so one night of torment was all it took.

Changing gears completely, has anyone seen that livejournal is allowing individuals to change their usernames if they want? Well in that spirit I found all of the new usernames that have the word Vagina in them, ( and here they are for your reading pleasure. )

This is officially turning into the worst day ever. It started off with a trip to the dermatologists to get some moles looked at. I ended up having them removed which was surprisingly quick and painless. However, an appointment at 9:00 ended up with me not seeing the doctor until 9:45, and not being done until almost 10. Which is a problem because I had a final that I had to proctor at 10:30.

I get to the final right on time and I settle in for the long wait. The students have 2 hours for their final but the test was just a normal length test so I figured everyone would be done in an hour, which worked out perfectly to allow me to meet Courtney for lunch. 11:45 rolls around and Courtney calls me because I wasn't at our designated meeting spot. My students were still working on their tests so I had to ask her to wait. The traffic downtown was crazy at lunch time so she was freaking out about finding a spot and I didn't know what I could do to help her. Finally at 12:15!!! the last student finished his test, and I called Courtney to come pick me up.

She came and got me and we drove around downtown looking for a final to no avail, so Courtney just dropped me back off at campus. Which is where I currently am, starving. Now I have an appointment with one professor at 1 about a paper, then a meeting with the head of graduate studies at 3 to talk about the possibility of me getting a double-degree in law and philosophy (which I am dreading because he seems kind of territorial and not very helpful about this). Then I have a final at 6 tonight. So I have a bunch of long breaks in between stressful stuff, all of which are too short for me to go home. Plus, due to that student I didn't even get to have lunch with Courtney or spend any time with her!!

I am sure that everyone is up-to-date about courters28 and my problems getting her wedding band (if you aren't I would suggest catching up). What really strikes me about this whole thing is how weirdly the people at Balano Jewelers are taking this whole thing. When we originally went in and found out how bad the ring looked, the lady didn't even appologize. She just kept telling us that it is a really easy fix. Which is just like, great, thanks for that, but what about the fact that you totally FUCKED UP!?!?!

Then today I called them to try and fix the situation, and instead of being all like the-customer-is-always-right, they almost got defensive. At one point I was explaining all of the things they got wrong with the ring (which is almost everything, it is made of white gold with little diamonds, other than that they pretty much screwed the pooch), and the guy actually said "well it looks like good quality to me." Which I kind of understand, I mean I was telling them that the ring they made is kind of a piece of junk, and if you are proud of your work that can be hard to hear. But, I wasn't commenting on the quality of the work (like I have any ability to judge a well-made ring from a junky one) I was just saying that the perfectly lovely piece of work they made was NOT WHAT WE HAD PAID FOR!

Maybe I am just hopelessly naive, but it seems to me that the right path to take here would be to accept blame and work to make the customer happy. Maybe this is just the trickle-down effect of our commander-in-chief -- never accept blame, just keep insisting that what you did is really much better than it seems. If so, then I may be getting on the bandwagon of those who pine for a long-forgotten yester-year where treating your customers right mattered and blowing up other countries was not something you entered into upon a whim.

courters28 bought me I'm Just Here For the FOOD by Alton Brown, and now she is accusing me of having a bit of a man-crush on said chef extroardinaire. Unfortunately, I think it may have gone beyond a man-crush, we may be at a full-blown level-orange man-session (Get it? Man + obsession = man-session. I'm still working on it.). Ever since she got me the cook-book, I have just been reading it in my free time. That's right, I am READING a cookbook, from start to finish. The thing is, I think that I will actually be a better cook for doing so.

Unlike most cookbooks that serve more as encyclopedias / recipe repositories, Alton Brown wrote a cookbook that gives you all the tools to cook better. Not only that, but the information he gives you isn't just a collection of time-worn adages, instead he has personally experimented to find the best method of cooking. He also has a firm knowledge of the science that is behind the cooking. I actually learned what fat is and what makes it saturated or unsaturated.

In conclusion, I love Alton Brown.