New Year's Meme... cuz all the cool kids do it!

I stole this one from here. 

1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before? Excelled in college, finally. Also, I sold and threw away a whole pile of stuff, which I've never really done before.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? My resolutions were to eat more pie and replace "I want a monkey" with "I want a koala bear" (inside joke) and I kept both. This year I am going to walk more and replace "I want a koala bear" with "I want a ring-tailed lemur."

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? No.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Hell no!

5. What countries did you visit? Countries? I barely left the house!

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? Besides a ring-tailed lemur? Maybe a job? A Fender Stratocaster and Fender Twin Reverb?

7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? None... it was pretty uneventful, thank goodness.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 4.0 in my first year of college.

 
9. What was your biggest failure? No koala bear.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Does Wellbutrin withdrawal count? Otherwise, nothing of any note.

11. What was the best thing you bought? There were so many things! I got a Wii, a pile of video games, a new guitar, a katana, an iPod, a new phone, a video card for my PC, a new 40" HDTV, a new lawn... but the best thing might be the Blu-ray player. Movies have never looked so good.

 
12. Whose behavior merited celebration? Mine. I frakking rocked! Also, my wife... she deserves a parade for putting up with me.

 13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? The entire Republican Party. I think the election results show that I'm not alone.

14. Where did most of your money go? Away...

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? I get really, really, really excited about everything! 

16. What song will always remind you of 2008? Andalusia by Joe Satriani. We saw him live this fall, and that song was the highlight of an incredible performance.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:a) happier or sadder? b) thinner or fatter? c) richer or poorer? Happier, very slightly thinner, and richer by a hair?

18. What do you wish you’d done more of? Exercise.

 19. What do you wish you’d done less of? Drinking.

20. How will you be spending Christmas? Washing my time machine?

 21. Did you fall in love in 2008? Yes! With a brand new kitten named Ellie

 22. How many one-night stands? One, with myself, and I didn't respect myself in the morning.

23. What was your favorite TV program? Lost.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Nope, still hate all the same people. 

25. What was the best book you read? Soon I Will Be Invincible.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery? The Phrygian mode.

 
27. What did you want and get? iPod Touch

28. What did you want and not get? A Koala bear

29. What was your favorite film of this year? Tropic Thunder

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I was 34, and I spent my birthday with my parents, who drove down from North Carolina for the weekend to see me.

 31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Winning the lottery

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? Neo-slob

 
33. What kept you sane? Podcasts involving people who are just as horrified at the world as I am.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Wall-E

35. What political issue stirred you the most? The election?

36. Who did you miss? I can't say for legal reasons, but I don't plan on missing the next time. (I'm kidding!!!!!!)

37. Who was the best new person you met? This chick I met in class last spring, who I also had a class with in the fall. 

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008. Hard work pays off, and you CAN spend money you don't have but you end up paying for it later.

39. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. No.

That's it... Happy New Year everyone!

Look at the Big Red "A"!!

Look at it! Right there to the...ummm... RIGHT! The Scarlett A. The A stands for Atheist. The link takes you to the "OUT Campaign" started by Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion. It is all about being proud and open about the lack of faith, which is a necessary thing in a culture devoted to the idea that faith is good and useful, and lack of faith is inherently wrong and almost treasonous.

That's right, friends and far-off neighbors. I'm one of the godless living among you. I'm a rationalist, humanist, secular member of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy. One of these days I'll even get the T-shirt. I don't believe in any gods at all... and I also don't believe in Bigfoot, Nessie, ghosts, ESP, alien abductions, or much else. I'm actually pretty much against anything based on beliefs being treated as equivalent to something based on evidence and logic. I don't think you can know things based on how you feel. I'm great fun at weddings and funerals, trust me.

This was going to be a rant about how I hate the entire concept of "being open minded" but that really leads into a longer discussion of my general worldview. Seeing as how my overall philosophical position informs  my opinion on specific issues, I though it would be better to start with that. My position is based on the idea that it is only practical to base your worldview on the most objective standard possible. We have to agree on certain ground rules or else it is impossible to discuss things. Words have to mean the same thing to everyone, we have to be able to share experiences and observations. Otherwise everything decends into solipsism, the idea that you cannot say anything about the universe outside of your own mind. From there, no reasonable discussion seems possible.

That means that if you want me to accept the existence of something, you have to pull it out and show me. Otherwise, no dice. If you tell me that you "feel" like it exists, that doesn't do me any good at all. 

At some point, this is going to lead to disagreements between me and anyone who bothers to read my blog. That's fine... because I'm right and you're wrong. *grins* 

I'm sure there's more to say on the subject(I gave a speech on it earlier this year) but right now is time for lunch and a Troma horror flick. 

Medication update:

We got in touch with the mail-order pharmacy... my pills are on the way! Woo-HOOOOOO!!

Thank goodness. Now I can sleep easy, knowing that I will continue to get my daily fix of happiness. Unfortunately, it means I can't get all tore up on New Year's Eve... I could have seizures and DIE!

Giving up drinking is a small price to pay. Even though I LOVE the alcohol. LOVE.

Sunday Stealing (MY FIRST MEME!!!)

I've always sort of avoided this sort of thing, but my wife says more people will read my blog if I do it... so here goes with the Sunday Stealing!

1. Name a TV show series in which you have seen every episode at least twice: Law & Order... that shit is on like 25 hours a day, 8 days a week!

2. Name a show you can't miss: Lost whenever it comes back on.

3. Name an actor that would make you more inclined to watch a show: Christopher Walken. If he ever did television, we are all required to watch.

4. Name an actor who would make you less likely to watch a show: Anyone from a reality show pretending to be an actor.

5. Name a show you can, and do, quote from: I don't quote from shows, but I do a variety of sinister sounding "Viewer Discretion Is Advised" warnings... does that count? 

6. Name a show you like that no one else enjoys: I don't know of one. Don't those shows get cancelled if no one likes them but me? 

7. Name a TV show which you've been known to sing the theme song: Bonanza... yes it has a theme song with lyrics, no I'm not going to sing it for you!

8. Name a show you would recommend everyone to watch: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles... it started out as exactly what you would expect, and has morphed into something new and original. That means it will get cancelled any minute. 

9. Name a TV series you own: Lost, Firefly, and a couple of others I hypothetically burned DVDs of. 

10. Name an actor who launched his/her entertainment career in another medium, but has surprised you with his/her acting chops in television: Justin Timberlake has been pretty damned funny on SNL lately.

11. What is your favorite episode of your favorite series? There was an episode of Lost where Ben, the main creepy bad guy, watches a mercenary execute his daughter and doesn't do anything about it because he has a "higher calling" to the island or something. Good stuff. 

12. Name a show you keep meaning to watch, but you just haven't gotten around to yet: Doctor Who... it is supposed to be good, but how do you get on board with a show that started before you were born?

13. Ever quit watching a show because it was so bad? CSI: Miami... David Caruso is the worst goddamned motherfucking actor on television today. Every line of dialogue is delivered as if he's trying to squeeze out the bowel obstruction that killed Elvis on the shitter. 

14. Name a show that's made you cry multiple times: The Frugal Gourmet... I must have chopped my own weight in onions when I was a kid watching those PBS cooking shows.

15. What do you eat when you watch TV? Crackers and cheese, cheese and crackers.

16. How often do you watch TV? Every day... although most of the time it is on as background noise.

17. What's the last TV show you watched? NCIS... there's a marathon on as I'm typing this.

18. What's your favorite/preferred genre of TV? Science fiction-y... which in my book includes Fringe and also House. 

19. What was the first TV show you were obsessed with? Robotech... transforming robot cartoons rule! I read all of the novelizations and comic books. I used to have giant robot dreams and everything. 

20. What TV show do you wish you never watched? Heroes... I've invested a whole bunch of time in a series that has turned into a giant steaming turd. 

21. What's the weirdest show you enjoyed? Manimal... I was eight or nine years old, don't blame me!

22. What TV show scared you the most? Tales From the Darkside

23. What is the funniest TV show you have ever watched? Arrested Development had to be one of the funniest shows ever. Great writing, a great cast... it got cancelled, of course!

NOW READ MY BLOG DAMMIT! OR I'LL SING THE BONANZA THEME SONG AT YOU!

The Friday "Why"!

I've got an incredibly sensitive bullshit detector, and a very low bullshit tolerance level. So I've decided to institute a new sort of weekly "thing" to do, while avoiding the daily meme deal. I'm also going to try to avoid a daily rant, so I'm going to split the difference.

Each Friday, I am going to post a "Friday 'Why'" where I am going to start with a question about the world we live in, and either answer it, go off on a rambling rant, or both. I'm planning on tackling the "9-11 Truth" movement, religious nuttery, homeopathic medicine crackpottery, media stupidity, reality TV, your mom, stupid commercials, famous people who shouldn't be, obscure people who should be famous, MY mom, and the cost of guitars from China. 

I'm bound to piss people off, which doesn't much bother me. In my defense, I promise to offend ALL OF YOU. I'm not sure how much of a defense that it, but it will do until I find something better.

So, Friday... look forward to a fun little discussion of the CIA/KGB/Al Qaeda/Mafia/Bush/Saudi/Jewish banker conspiracy to blow up the Twin Towers. This should be a good time!(and now that I've announced it, I actually have to go through with it. Yay.)

First time to the beach!!!

Not me, silly! The dog!

Wife and I were bored, so we decided to go to the beach and take Ginger with us. She had a BLAST! 77 degrees and sunny on the day after Xmas, and we had a good time. OK, I didn't have much of a time... I hate the smell of the ocean and I got sand in my shoes. Our very own best dog in the world got to sniff new smells and run around in the sand and say hello to the other dogs, so I guess it was worth doing.

On the way home, we stopped so that Ginger could wander around PetSmart, and so that we could buy her a water dispenser for the next time she's out in the sun for an hour or more. She had a great time there too. Pretty much Ginger is happy any time she leaves the house, and most of the time that she's in the house too. A happy dog is a wonderful thing.

Xmas and Family Fun

It is Xmas Eve, the season where my mom tries to force the family to get along. Good times, right? I used to have a crap relationship with my parents, that I've sort of resolved by way of threatening to never call again when they get "uppity." I'm still not talking to my brother, and I don't plan on ever going out of my way to talk to him again.

My brother, you see, is an asshole. An arrogant, greedy, selfish, rude, hateful, spoiled, exploitative asshole. He uses people, including my parents. He's gone out of his way to let me and my other brother know that we mean less to him than his friends. I put up with his bullshit for years and years and years. 

Here's an example: My dad and I packed up his house once, and helped move all of his stuff for him. We drove 90 miles to his house at 6 in the morning, and he wasn't there because he was getting breakfast... for himself and his friend from work who was helping him move. He hadn't actually bother packing anything, so my dad and I had to do it while he got the rental truck. We worked until three or four in the afternoon with no food, no drinks, nothing. About five minutes after we brought the last box in, my brother says "Well, thanks. I guess you need to get out of here and drive home. See ya!" and then asks his friend if he wants to get a pizza.

So. Last Xmas was the final straw. He calls me up and tells me that he needs to build  something for his kid, and sort of hinted that it would be cool if someone would buy it. I say "it is close to Xmas, I'll try to pick that up for the kid." I had just lost my job, and the unemployment had run out, and my brother is a cocksucker, but his kid doesn't deserve to get caught in the middle of it. I was waiting for my college loan to come in, and I didn't know that it was going to be until the end of January for me to get the check. I literally couldn't pay my mortgage that month, because we had bought my school books and paid some other bills expecting to get that check before Xmas. My brother calls my parents to call me the biggest piece of crap in the world, and then calls me to ream me out. I let him know that I had literally no money, and that I would buy the thing as soon as the check would come. That wasn't good enough for him, and sure as hell he didn't care that I was in financial trouble. Finally, I just hung up on him. 

I haven't talked to him since. 

Every so often, my mom tries to convince me to give him a call and "work things out." She doesn't understand that this was just the last in a decade-long series of insults and attacks. I'm pretty much done with him now. I'm not even angry anymore, which is the strange part. I just know that he's been the person that he is for at least the last 10 years, and there's no reason to assume that he's any different. There's nothing about his personality that makes it a good idea for us to have a conversation about anything, ever. All it would do is give him a chance to come at me, and I can either take it or respond to it, and he wins either way.

So, better not to even go there. Let's just hope my mom can avoid going there too. It would be nice to avoid the entire thing, especially in my current fragile state. :) Those of you with good family relations, enjoy them and appreciate them. Those of you with crappy ones, remember that it is probably the other guy's fault!

Happy Monkey!

Adventures in Medication

I take Wellbutrin for depression/smoking/weight. I take two pills a day, and I feel fucking marvelous. I have 14 pills left. The shrinky-dink prescribed me a 30 day supply, plus a 90-day mail-in prescription. I took the 30 day prescription to Walgreens... and the insurance company denied my meds, and I found out that my pills cost $7 apiece or $400+ a month. So, we mailed in my prescription and we've crossed our fingers.

I'm only taking half-doses for the next two weeks... because full-on withdrawal from Wellbutrin sends me into a rather frightening tailspin. I'm not sure how horrible I'm going to feel in the next two weeks. I'm just glad that school is out, and no one needs me to do anything useful or important for another month.

In the meanwhile, I'm going to be hiding in my cave alot.

Now is the winter of my discontent...

I have four weeks until I go back to school, and I'm already bored. Yay. Do you ever feel like there is so much stuff to do that your best bet is to do nothing at all? That's me. Here's a quick list of things I could start on right now:

• Yard work: things aren't growing wildly, which means I could actually get ahead of it.
• Pressure wash the house and driveway: right after I do the edging.
• Lay fresh rock in the rock beds.
• Clean the garage after I get all the outside stuff done.
• Look for a job: iPods and such cost money.
• General house cleaning, just because.
  

I'm honestly having a hard enough time going for walks and doing the Wii Fit thing. It took me tons of willpower to sit down long enough to figure out the iPod. I'm a little bit overwhelmed this week. Add to that an enjoyable disruption of my sleep pattern, and I'm running on frakking fumes. Weird thing happened this weekend with the sleep: I slept like crap during Finals Week, because that's just what I do. So, Monday night I get no sleep. Tuesday night I get REALLY no sleep, because Wednesday was two finals. Thursday night I'm waiting for grades to get posted. So, by Friday I'm a complete wreck. Friday I had to take the dog to the vet for booster shots, which was big-time traumatic for her. Then we went out for haircuts at 3:30, and didn't get home until 9:00. Slept ok Friday night sort of. Saturday, I didn't blog for a reason... because I fell asleep on the couch at 7:00, and woke up Sunday morning at 9:00.

Yes, friends and far-off neighbors, I slept 14 frakking hours Saturday night. Guess how many hours I got Sunday night? THREE.

So, my first instinct is to cook and then eat everything in the house. Chicken wings nine ways. Chicken pot pie. Stir fry beef in oyster sauce. Pineapple pork with roasted peppers and onions. Extra spicy fajitas. Thin crust pizza. Shrimp salad. Sausage and cheese ravioli. Meatballs in some sort of sweet sauce. All manner of stews and casseroles and soups. I'm not going with that instinct, elsewise I'll wind up gaining 50 pounds by the time school starts, instead of losing 20. 

Lunch is a 110 calorie protein shake. Happy Monkey!

Broke down and sold my soul to Apple

Yep.

Got me an iPod Touch. Gosh, I'm so fucking spoiled. Not too spoiled, since I didn't get the giant 32 GB iPod or anything, just the 8GB.

It works just like the commercial! Now, if I can just figure out how to get my music onto the damned thing... 

Bitten by the IKEA bug...

I wonder how people manage to save money when stores like Ikea exist. I plan on spending every last penny I ever make on that snazzy/cheap furniture.

The wife already blogged about the mad crushing we're doing on all that stuff. What she didn't blog about is the cost. If I do all the installing myself, we're looking at something in the range of $7500 for the kitchen. Suddenly, all of those "cheap" things add up to not-so-cheap. I can't even imagine how much it would cost if I had to pay for installation too. At least they don't jerk you around like Home Depot does, where they want to have people come into your house and then they work the hard sale on you until you have to threaten to call the cops.

So, I'm going to come up with the money the old-fashioned way: hope we get a big tax refund!

Welcome to the Man Cave!

My wife posts lots of pictures of the outside of the house. That's her gig, and she's welcome to it. The landscaping was her big project and it looks frakking awesome. I did the Xmas lights thing but that was FOR her as a surprise last year and now we continue it as one of our few traditions. 

I have a room in the house that is MY project. My man cave, the place where the magic happens. I painted it, tore out the closet, decorated with stuffs and other stuffs. It is time to post pictures, because pictures make things even more real than words.** So, here's my first attempt at a picture-based post... I have my HTML textbook handy just in case.

Here's the sign my in-laws bought me about three years ago. It is pretty damn cool!

Here's where the magic happens! Fast computer, two monitors, 5.1 Surround Sound, super comfy chair, lots of desktop organizational stuff. The whole thing is set up for maximum comfort and  orderliness. It is all set up so that I can sit and study for hours, and maintain some sense of focus.

Big-ass amplifier! Also, two guitars! I can only turn the amp up to about "1" before it becomes painful to stand close to. The guitars are pretty groovy, and I dig them much. I have professional-level gear, even though I only have bedroom-level skills. Joy!

Of course, a man cave isn't a man cave without bobbleheads and DVDs! Star Wars, superheroes, plus Master Chief from the Halo games, and Barack Obama. Obama says "Yes We Can!" when you make the head shake. Yeah, I'm a geek!

And finally, no man cave is complete without a Bowflex home gym, a Darth Vader lightsaber, and a fully functional razor-sharp katana. 

Thanks for "visiting" my man cave. I spend WAY too much time in here, so I'm going to get a plant to make it more "homey" and less "cavey." Yay plants!

Advice for Mrs. Chili's Speech Class

... just because I know everything, I'm the bestest person in the world, and I'm wise beyond my years and everyone else's years too. :)

• Have a very short speech due the second or third class, and grade it like it is the final exam. Let everyone know up front that you will fail ALL OF THEM if they deserve it, right off the bat.
• Don't let people pick lazy topics. We did a round of persuasive speeches, and most of them were "don't be fat," "don't abuse animals," and the classic "don't drink and drive." NO!!!!
• Did I mention failing almost everyone? Always good advice.
• Watch out for the worst thing I saw, which is people copying from 4-5 websites that have the exact same information on them. You can tell because every two minutes they will repeat most of the same information, for the entire length of the speech.
• Mandatory attendance during speeches, as part of the grade for THEIR speech. While you have the whole class there, feel free to critique the speeches as they are given. I did better on my speeches by watching other people screw up and get corrected on those mistakes. 

And, finally:

FAIL EVERYBODY!!

The morning after... a few thoughts on school so far

As a way of saving money on facilities and utilities(I guess?) the school I'm going to has decided that we will take a whole month off for Xmas, and go back to class on January 20th. It means that I have just shy of five weeks off, but before I look forward to lots of video games and getting yelled at for not doing dishes, I thought I would take a quick look back at this semester.

Ok, mostly I want to make fun of people... is that wrong? 

Anyhoo, I signed up for five classes last semester and dropped one. Customer Service? Really... do I seem like the type who likes or should come within 100 feet of customers? The other four classes:

Oral Composition: Found out I like giving speeches. Also found out that some of the professors are as frustrated with the quality of students as I am. The most fun was standing up there for a half hour and giving a speech and answering questions about Zombie Attack Preparedness. The least fun was listening to factually inaccurate speeches about Christianity and why I should convert. They were all LAZY speeches, which was the worst of it. Something I've always wondered about the most vocal kind of "I'M A CHRISTIAN" kind of person came up again: if they are so all about Jeebus, why are they the most ignorant about the Bible and why is it that they put so little effort into things related to their favorite subject? I'm pointing at the contemporary Christian "musicians"...

College Algebra: If you want good grades, you need to do your homework. If you don't do your homework then STFU about your grades. 

Computer Operating Systems: Waste of $200 on books that we didn't open for the entire semester. I could have learned that entire course in a week of effort.

Music Appreciation: I don't care about classical music one way or another. The entire class is classical music. I STILL don't care about it either way. 

Epic Fail!!!!!!!!!

Not me, kids. I knocked the final out of the park, and got three of the four extra credit questions right. The rest of the class, not so much.

First off, we had to identify the composers of 16 pieces of music. The COMPOSERS, not the names of the pieces. The instructor made that VERY clear. But because the list he showed on the projector didn't have the composers listed, some people didn't bother to learn the composers names. Fail. 

That wasn't the bad part. The bad part was when the hood rats rolled in late as always, in a pack of concentrated stupid ten minutes into the exam. The last one in was high/drunk/mentally defective and was talking very loudly about starting the test... even though the test had already started. The instructor told him to cool it, he told the instructor to cool it, and then tore the exam in half and threw it into the air. He refused to leave until the instructor went to get the security guard to haul his happy ass out. 

Most of us try to pass our exams, a few of us shoot for 100%. It takes a special (ed) kind of person to come a couple of steps away from going to jail during an exam. 

That's some epic fail right there.

Oh boy...

Well. 

I'm on my way to my Algebra final in about 30 minutes. I'm a little stressed out. Just a little, since I can make a 70 and still get an A in the course. But I'm still worried, like I'll draw a blank the way I did when I was seven years old and got a 15 on a math test. Yes, I still remember it. It haunts me to this day. No, really. I'm serious!

What I'm really worried about is tonight's Music Appreciation final. Why would a teacher boil down 200 years of history and 240 pages of a 500 page book down to just 9 questions? What the hell am I supposed to study? Everything? Memorize the whole book? Doing the math, it comes out to about one question for every 27 pages in the book. As an example of how horrifying that is, take the last 26 pages of the book, which covers Elvis, the 12-bar blues pattern, 1960's politics, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Motown, surf music, folk music, country music, 1970's singer-songwriters, the birth of heavy metal, MTV,and 50 Cent. There will probably be one or maybe two questions involving all of those things. I don't have any clue how to study for a test where the questions are completely random and could involve anything from 19th century orchestration to the lack of melody in rap music. 

And that was supposed to be my EASY class!

Update:

Took my Algebra final... 26 whole questions, took me about 35 minutes, I think I missed one. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I got the 70% I needed to score an A in the class. Three down, one to go. 

Two finals down, and two to go!

This morning I had a 10:00 final exam in my Computer Operating Systems class. I was out of there by 10:15, and I got a shiny new 100% to hang on my wall. Yay Joe! Tomorrow I have two exams, College Algebra and Music Appreciation. Not so yay on the second one. I have to recognize 16 pieces of music and identify the composer, and then answer 9 questions based on the last 200 years of music, with absolutely no hint of what I should focus on studying. The instructor is a musician who might be good at teaching PLAYING music but sucks at teaching ABOUT music. 

Algebra, on the other hand, is a breeze. Maybe even too easy for me, even though most of the class is on the razor edge of failure. I'm in my 30s and have been out of school for over 15 years, and I am getting better grades than any of the youngsters right out of high school. How can this be?!?! Shouldn't I be the one struggling? Wellllll... yes and no. I mean, sure I'm a genius and whatever. It goes without saying that I'm really smart and I've seen all of this before(back when Bush I was president!) But why do I have a 98% test average when the rest of the class is averaging closer to a 72%?

A conversation I had with one of the younger students in my class shed some light on the problems the rest of the class is having, and why I'm kicking their asses up and down and ruining any chance at a curve. Someone asked about a curve, BTW... the professor said that since I made a 102% on that test, there was no reason for a curve. Anyhoo. This chick asks me if we're going to start review for the final. I told her we were, and that I could really use the review on the first few chapters especially. Her response was to ask me why I was worried and why I cared, since I had such a good average already. She then told me that she had figured out the exact grade she needed to get on the final to get a 70% in the class and not have to take it again. 

A-HAH! There's the problem!

First off: the reason I have good grades is because I worry and I care. If I stop doing those things, my grades will go down. It isn't an accident that I study more than anyone in the class that I talk to. More work equals better grades all things being equal. I didn't take the first test seriously because I figured it would be a breeze, and I got an 88. FUCK an 88. That's just not good enough for me. When you feel too confident is when you need to prepare just a little bit more. If I had said "screw it" yesterday and hadn't studied for my OS class today, I would have passed probably, but I know I wouldn't have done as well as I did.

Secondly... and this is the biggest problem I've seen since I've been back in college... students today are aiming for the lowest possible passing grade, with the least amount of work possible. A 70% should be what you accept if you have to, not a goal to set for yourself. I can understand if you're struggling because you lack aptitude, and you are doing everything you can do to pass. It is quite another thing entirely when you walk into class with the expectation that showing up entitles you to a passing grade automatically. Or, as one girl in my Speech class tried to pull, expecting to get a good grade and not show up, and not be prepared when she did bother to roll in. There's a dozen blog entries about that class alone, ask my long-suffering wife. If you aim for the minimum outcome, and put out minimal effort, it is no one's fault but your own when you get a piss-poor outcome.

I cannot imagine for a moment walking into a class and announcing on the first day that I would 

be perfectly happy with a 70%. What the hell is the purpose of that, besides setting yourself up to fail? That is doubly true for math classes, where each chapter is built upon the previous chapters. If you only learned 70% of Chapter 1, then you automatically don't know anything in Chapter 2 that relies on the 30% you didn't bother with. By the time you get to the middle of the class, over half of what you learn depends on things you should have learned already, and you'll be lucky to get 50% right on the next test. So sorry, better luck next semester.

At this point, I would like to blame high school teachers for this. The kids today have all sorts of weird ideas of entitlement that I don't remember existing when I was their age. For instance, since when was it acceptable to turn in all of your assignments late, every single time? When did extra credit become something a teacher was required to give on every assignment? At what point did it become standard for students to look a teacher in the eye and declare that they didn't like the assignment they were given and therefore would turn in whatever they felt like instead... and expect a good grade when they turned in something that didn't fulfill the requirements of the assignment?

I would just chuckle about this sort of stuff, except it interferes with my education. For instance, last Wednesday in Algebra right after that conversation about the review, we started the review... which covered nothing but the questions on the previous test that most of the class had done poorly on. I guess we can forget about reviewing the first four chapters, because no one has figured out the fifth one yet.

Which brings us to right now. I have the final exam tomorrow morning at 10:30. Between now and then, I plan on retaking all 6 tests we're had in the class, and then taking all of the practice tests in the textbook. Overkill? Maybe... but I did the math, and I need to get at least a 20% on the final to get a B... and a 70% to get an A. I'm not taking anything for granted. 

Oh, and the musical pieces for my Music Appreciation class? They are on a random loop on my computer, and will play the whole time I'm studying. Just to be safe.

The best laid plans... and 92 pounds to go!

Well... in my post last night I had a big plan for what I was going to do today, exercise-wise. Unfortunately, I was up for another 7 hours after I made that plan. Going to bed at 5 AM is probably not the best way to kick things off. 

But I'm no quitter. I went out and walked 36 minutes with my dog, and one of us had a great time. She got to dig around in the treeline, run around in people's yards. I got to deal with overcast skys, 70 degrees and high humidity in frakking December.  Plus, my overpriced shoes don't quite fit correctly, so they sort of slide around my ankles. At least my feet didn't hurt much today, which is a pretty big blessing these days.

So, the rest of my day consists of me memorizing about 400 test answers for a final exam tomorrow, then another long walk, some Wii Fit and Wii Play, and dinner. I'm having my nutritious shake for lunch, and I'll eat a protein bar in a couple of hours. I'll probably drink a gallon or more of tea. I was a little sloppy about my diet over the weekend, and I still lost two pounds, so this week I expect I should lose three or four. 

Tomorrow should be a good time... after I take my computer class final, I'm coming home and retaking all of this semester's algebra tests to study for Wednesday's final. I've also got to study for my Music Appreciation exam Wednesday. Than I'm done for a month, and I'm going to do little besides work out and play Spore. Yay!

Losing 100 pounds by 2010... 6 down already!

If my wife could do it, then why can't I? Of course, she had a gastric bypass, and I'm depending on diet and exercise(and willpower, or what passes for it) but I still think it can be done. 

Most people like to play that whole "New Year's Resolution" game, but not me. I quit drinking and smoking in November, and started my diet on the first of December. Tomorrow I'm going to start my workout program. I figure by the time the new year comes around, I'll have a running start at my goal. 

Let's be honest: 100 pounds is going to be almost impossible for me to lose, ever. I have a feeling that around the 75 pound mark I'm going to hit a serious issue where I have to lose a little muscle mass to lose any more weight. But at that point, I will be in such good shape that I probably won't care. 

The wifely one is going to be helping me out, mostly in the form of throwing out leftovers when we're done eating. I used to be a serious athlete, and I spent ten years eating constantly just to keep from losing weight. I have some seriously screwed up eating habits as a result. So, the best way to resist the temptation is to remove the temptation. Whatever we don't eat goes into the trash, not saved for later... like now, because I could totally murder another helping of the chicken and pasta I made for dinner a few hours ago. Instead, I'm going to drink another half-gallon of decaf tea sweetened with Splenda. 

When I wake up in the morning, the dog and I are going for a 30 minute walk. After lunch we're going for ANOTHER walk, maybe 15-20 minutes. Then I'm going to stretch really good, and ride one mile on my bicycle. Yeah, one mile. I find bicycle riding to be very difficult, but my feet are too screwed up to run, especially at my current weight. Then, I'm going to play some Wii games for awhile, until I collapse from exhaustion. 

Tuesday it starts all over again, except I have to take a break for my Operating Systems class final... joy!

Public Speaker of the Year

Yep, that's me. 

That was my fake award given to me on the last day of my Oral Composition class this morning, by one of my fellow students. We had to give a short speech for a "special occasion" such as a wedding, funeral, or accepting or giving a reward. One of my classmates decided to give a speech about how good of a public speaker I am, and gave a  speech presenting me with the honor of "Best Speaker". Pretty cool, especially considering I'm not friends with the guy and I barely spoke to him all semester. I guess it just goes to show...

Well...

I guess it shows something?