so uh

that happened kinda fast. The blogger groups told me to:

1. be logged in and change the url name
2. create a new blog and give it the original url name and in that blog post a redirect to my new url

Guess what, after I renamed it, I couldn't create a blog with the original url because _ is no longer allowed.

So I'll have to contact you all individually. Sorry!

test

test post on new url

url change

So the original reason that my url for this blog is my own name is that I thought my mundane ramblings would, by some stroke of luck, get me some sort of fame or book deal. It's been a few years and I've given up on that fantasy so I intend to change the url soon to something slightly more anonymous so I can feel free to be more potty mouthed and offensive. I'm just trying to figure out how to do that and not lose any of my regular readers in the transition. stay tuned

I'm back

I'm a week into a new quarter and did two things today that I hate doing. I sent in my taxes to a tax preparer and got an oil change. This is a big deal for me because I tend to put these things off and to hit two in one day is huge. I got a coupon for a $19.99 oil change at Jiffy Lube down the street. I was greeted by a young lady with piercings the circumference of my pinky (does that hole ever shrink back?). The fellow who took my info tried to upsell me to synthetic oil and then asked if he could buy my car. Weird. When I got my car back I noticed there was no oil change sticker so I went back in and another young lady with insane tattoos all over her neck said they had run out. I don't know what's with this place. I thought I had walked into some juvenile detention center where there is no one over the age of 18 to supervise. I wonder if I even got my oil changed or if I just handed over my $23 for nothing.

Oahu

Went to Hawaii from March 15-20. Here's a quick recap:

Thurs: arrived 11:30, checked the luggage since it was too early to check in. Walked to Ala Moana Center (world's largest outdoor mall) for lunch and wander a bit. Then checked in, walked to Waikiki Beach and then had an expensive but mediocre seafood dinner at Chart House

Fri: 11:30 surfing lesson at Waikiki Beach. Stood up on the first try. Paddling out is hell when your only exercise the last 6 months has been typing and holding up heavy books. Got a sunburn, had a few wipeouts but all in all, very exciting. Went to Germaine's Luau that night. With 3 drinks, entertainment, and a free tote bag with playing cards, beach mat, and water bottle for booking online, it was sort of worth the $65 but probably won't go again. Here's a pic of the guys pulling the pig out of the ground where it had been cooking on hot rocks since 5am.

Sat: Honolulu Chinatown and Nuuanu Pali mountain where it's really windy and you can see an island called (grrrrrr) Chinaman's Hat. Got a massage at the hotel. Dinner at Odoriko Japanese Restaurant. Had a huge seafood hotpot we could barely finish. It was raining intermittently in sheets. Tropical rains are crazy.

Sun: Snorkeling at Hanauma Bay where it was kinda windy and rainy that day but the fish were beautiful and plentiful. Below is a picture of some chickens hanging out at Hanauma pecking and scratching at someone's belongings. That cracked me up. Took Simon out for a bday dinner at Tenaka of Tokyo East.

Mon: Pearl Harbor which was interesting. I almost lost it during the film when they said that fateful day was tragic but really "united America." Um, united white America maybe. There was absolutely no mention that they locked up all the Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor which forced them all to lose pretty much everything. In fact there was NO mention of Japanese internment at all. Anyways, went back to the beach that evening even though it was a bit chillier than it had been earlier that trip. Dinner at Aqua Cafe in Waikiki Shopping Plaza. Food sort of sucked.

Tues: hit the beach in the morning, got late check out, then visited Bishop Museum (below) and had dinner at Singha Thai. Flew out at 9pm

Good trip, wish it were longer and that it had rained less. I could've stayed there for a couple weeks easily.

Spring Break

I am so drained I can't keep track of what day it is or form coherent sentences. I handed in the last of my schoolwork yesterday. Last night I slept nine hours, went to a TA meeting this morning, came back and slept again for over an hour. I think my brain has shut down as a defense mechanism. I'm headed to SF then Oahu, then SF then back here over spring break. Hopefully that fixes whatever the hell is broken in my head.

obnoxious

What sorta noise do you find most obnoxious? I get all sorts here in Lake Shitty. Aside from the punk rock from downstairs, the loud talking college girls upstairs and children tearing down the hallway there are also the regular fire truck sirens, assholes playing loud bass from their cars as they drive into the parking garage, and the bigger assholes who peel out of the parking lot across the street such that their tires squeal. The tires squealing is really annoying but what bugs me more is that one day their car will skid out of control while they're trying to assert their masculinity by peeling out of the lot in their little shitboxes and they will hit a pedestrian. People who speed or mess around in parking lots really piss me off. It's just irresponsible. I wish there were an IQ test, maturity test, and I'm-not-an-asshole test that went along with the written and road test for drivers licenses.

flying hamster

I'm having a so-so day, which is why I was delighted to see that today's cuteoverload.com features a hamster. This is what happens when they run really fast and then suddenly stop. Since physics is a little beyond them, they get super confused when the still spinning wheel sends them flying right out onto the bedding. I'm impressed that anyone captured this in a photo because it happens really fast.

wikipedia

So citing wikpedia is generally not allowed in university and here's another reason why. I admit I love wikipedia to get an overview of theories and concepts I'm not familiar with when I'm reading, but if you're looking to cite something look at the list of references and search for those instead.

4

I don't know why I'm doing this since the theme is 4 things and 4 means death in Chinese, but another blogger whom I cannot name because her/his blog is anonymous did it and I thought it was funny.

Four jobs I've had:
1. TA
2. Product marketing manager
3. Marcom Manager
4. gymnastics coach/choreographer

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Harold and Kumar
2. Better Luck Tomorrow
3. South Park The Movie
4. Office Space

Four places I've lived:
1. Seattle
2. Foster City, CA
3. San Jose, CA (yuck)
4. Coquitlam, BC (also yuck)

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Puerto Vallarta
2. Orlando
3. NYC
4. Paris

Four of my favorite dishes:
1. black cod with black bean on tofu
2. anything from Guu on Robson in Vancouver
3. gawn chow ow haw (no I'm not translating it)
4. BBQ duck

Four sites I visit daily:
1. Cuteoverload.com
2. Gmail
3. MyYahoo
4. UW Libraries (um yeah)

Four places I would rather be right now:
1. getting a massage
2. at a rave in 1998
3. on a beach someplace tropical
4. in that hotspring pool in Banff

oh Ann

From Slate.com Ann C0ulter shocked nobody last week by calling presidential candidate John Edwards a "faggot" during her appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Everyone in their right mind knows that Coulter is actually satan in a blond fucking wig. But still, the fact that she goes so far off the deep end does not mean that her hate filled tirades don't have some effect on the American consciousness. I think the problem with her and her buddies Rush and Pat is that they make other Republicans seem liberal by comparison, which artificially shifts the whole fucking spectrum to the right. And that's all I have to say about that cuz I don't talk politics on this blog. I have to go back to worrying about my insomnia now. $#@!

sleep, deux

So tomorrow I have to be at school at 8:10 am. Like in the classroom at that time. It's for a mini conference and folks have been wise enough to notice I can't talk at that time in the morning so I don't present until the end, closer to 11am. Which is good. But having to be there a mere 20 minutes earlier than every other Wednesday I've arrived for class means that I started stressing out earlier than usual about how I won't be able to get to sleep tonite. It's kind of ridiculous to start worrying about this sort of thing at 4:30 this afternoon in the middle of a friend's emergency-post-thesis-defense pub run but I did and it made me all sorts of crazy doing all this worrying about not sleeping. I really should not leave the house or attempt to socialize in that condition. I cannot wait until tomorrow is over. It'll be the last time I have 7 consecutive hours of lecture (8:30-3:30) followed by a 2 hour break and then another 2 hours of lecture (5:30-7:30) packed all into one exciting day. I will never ever pack that many hours of lecture in a day, especially starting that early in the morning ever ever again.

hi

I really hate it when people title their email "hi." I think I hate it more than emails with no subject at all because I figure if you are going to go to the effort of inserting any title at all it should be a little bit more descriptive or creative than fuckin' "hi." Actually this was not meant to be the subject of this post but typing the word hi suddenly reminded me of this reaction that "hi" elicits when it populates the subject field of an email. What I actually meant to post was a "hi" to my students Dennis and Russ whom I recently learned are reading my blog. Yes a wake-up call to me and others that blogs are public and that is why I follow a few rules when I blog. Never blog about friends, coworkers, employers, or students (unless it's something nice). Be especially careful not to name them or put up photos of them without permission if you're blogging about something they said or did in a private forum. Don't blog anything that you would not talk about openly to a coworker, student, employer etc. Oh and don't blog anything that would give a crazy stalker with tendencies to injure people enough information to find you in real life. I think I generally do a good job of sticking to this though I curse a lot more in my blog than I do in normal conversation with say a coworker. But, fuck, whatever.

online PhD

When I am at home slaving away grading papers and trying write a paper that demonstrates my brilliance while also worrying about another 15 page paper, 2 presentations, teaching observation, and 2 versions of a teaching portfolio that I need to turn in, the last thing I want to see is a commercial about how easy it is to get an online Ph.D at Walden University. For example, they say "With a Ph.D. in Psychology, you’ll be better prepared as a researcher, educator and practitioner, helping individuals and groups with family, mental health, career and educational issues. " Come on...

I'm sorry, you're going to learn all this with nothing but an Internet connection from the comfort of your own home? Who are these faculty who "teach" online? Oh, I see, you have to call the 1 800 number or fill in their special form to "request information." That's not a whole lot different from that junk mail you used to get where you put the little sticker in the box with the "degree" you want and send it away for your free information pack on how to get your degree from home.

The thought of these bozos walking around with "Ph.Ds" earned "online" without taking GREs, spending months on applications, and enduring the physical relocation, heated academic debates, pain, politics, and sleepless nights that REAL PhDs go through infuriates me. They do not deserve that designation and having everyone walking around with a graduate degree dilutes the value of mine! If a school needs to advertise its graduate programs on TV, it's not a real school as far as I'm concerned.