Addicted to Blog

In response to my previous post, Anthony Gaenzle writes:

Seriously you have that much time on your hands that you have to belittle aspiring artists. Yes, their work may be subpar, but ask yourself, are you published? I mean, if you were making a living off of your writing you probably wouldn’t be bothering to badmouth these writer’s. Keep in mind that they are all beginners and they deserve credit for their efforts. I have been enrolled at USF for only a few weeks now and I have already heard about the Omnibus. Maybe you need to put the effort that you use to complain about things that don’t even concern you on your petty little blog and go ahead and do some research. I wrote one email and found out about the site. I am really glad that I accidentally stumbled across your blog cause its always nice to put a sad little bastard like yourself in his place. Thanks for making me laugh. Peace out ya petty little punk. Thanks for supporting the arts.

Firstly, Anthony, let me commend you on completely missing the point. It’s apparent that you are not well-schooled in reading comprehension. The main point of my “petty little blog” entry, as noted by the words “I shall get to my main point,” was not that the submissions were horrid; it was the fact that they obviously did not solicit submissions from anyone outside The Oracle. Why else are the only entries in that insipid little magazine from Oracle staff members? I challenge you to think of a different reason why this is so.

With regards to the rest of your comment: if this is supposed to be USF’s literary magazine, those of us in the creative writing department should definitely have heard of this. I shouldn’t have to do “research” in order to find it; it should be readily available.

Are you a freshman? You certainly sound like one, with your naive optimism about aspiring writers. In the real world, things do not function like the Special Olympics. If you suck, you’re not going to get a prize just for trying. Any “real” literary magazine would scoff at the Omnibus. If slapdash rhyming poetry is the extent of your talent, that should not be rewarded!

And this DOES concern me, as I am an “aspiring writer,” as you say. So, such mediocrity makes me cringe (as does your grammar). Good on you for putting ME in my place!

After many months’ hiatus, I finally have something to complain about, and where else would be a better place than here?

Today, I picked up an Omnibus 2006 from a neat pile stacked in the bin next to the day’s Oracle. What is Omnibus? Apparently, it is “USF’s student art and literary magazine.”

Funny that I have never heard of it before. Particularly since I am an English major, with a concentration in creative writing.

In an attempt to kill some time before my Italian exam this morning, I idly flipped through its pages. I shall not mince words - the content is ABSYMAL.

Firstly, they should have just called it “USF’s poetry magazine (with a few pieces of art and two stories).” The majority of this poorly-printed booklet is poetry. Don’t worry, I shan’t plagiarize from the book, but I will tell you, much of the poetry is of this variety:

I walked next to a shiny lake.
I ate some Little Debbie’s cake!
My boyfriend dumped me, made me cry;
I made this poem on the fly -
But I still feel bad
and want to die.

[None of the above is true].

The fiction is sorely in need of proofreading, as well as being horrendous.

Now, lest I just sound like a crab, I shall get to my main point. A few of the contributors’ names sounded vaguely familiar. After searching on the internet for about two seconds, I realized why.

This pained handful of contributors contains people who are prominent members of the Oracle’s staff.

Trying to keep in the family, are we? How is this fair?

I never saw an advertisement for submissions. I wonder why?

As school begins anew, I become increasingly appalled at the fashions and habits many of my fellow students employ. I would like to take a moment or two to lay down a few rules and express my distaste.

1. Lately, there has been a trend among young ladies to wear skintight pants, cinched below their hipbones. It is mostly girls of the size 0-4 persuasion I am speaking of on this point. You may be thin, yes, but wearing your pants that tightly grasps whatever remaining ounces of fat you might have and pushes it out of your stomach and back. Rule of thumb, girls - if it’s causing angry red weals and furrows in your skin, it’s too damned tight!

2. Adding to the above, the habit of wearing clothes smaller than your real size, causing your fat to hang over your clothes is also appalling. If it were a man, you would all be gagging and calling it inappropriate. So why is it acceptable for a woman?

3. People who wear pajamas to class that they slept in the night before are truly damned lazy. Is is really hard to put on something CLEAN? “I have no time,” you might say. Bull. Wake up five minutes earlier. And brush your hair, damn it. It’s gross.

4. Plaid shorts and pants, worn by either sex, STILL looks exceedingly ugly.

This has been a public service announcement from your friendly neighborhood biddy.

Okay, a four year old boy died on a ride at Disney World the other day. The coroner is still not quite sure why.

The ride in question was Mission: Space at Epcot. Disney’s website has a clip of the ride and some cautionary information here, excluding from the ride those with high blood pressure, heart, back or neck problems, and expectant mothers, to name a few. It’s also a ride “suggestion” for “big kids” (I presume they mean kids-at-heart, or something Disney-esque like that), teens, and “active fun” (read: thrill rides).

Looking at that clip, I dare ask, What the hell was a four year old doing on such a ride? Apparently, he fit the height requirement, but that does not mean he was completely fit for a ride that, apparently, goes to 4Gs.

I feel sorry for his family, but they really should have exercised better judgement. My parents would certainly not have let me on Mission: Space, had it been around when I was a young’un.

I have sorely neglected this site since school let out. This is just a message to state that I intend to return soon, once I decide what to do with this blog.

1.When there are signs posted in the library, in LARGE font, you should read them. If it says “Cell-phone free area,” that means turn the bloody thing OFF. It does not mean answer it and talk on it for ten minutes, telling people why you’re in the library and what you’re going to have for dinner.

2.Furthermore, the second floor is a known “quiet area.” Not only should you not have your damned cell phone on, you need to stop talking so loudly. It’s obnoxious and makes people that are silently doing homework want to throttle you.

3.Last mention of cell phones: it’s really rude to use them in class, in case you have been unaware of the rules of etiquette. By the way, if you think the professor doesn’t see you surreptitiously playing snake, you’re sorely mistaken. They’re fully aware you have it hidden in your Norton Anthology; they just refuse to break their lecture to bitch at you for it.

4.I know you need to find a parking space. However, mistaking the parking garage for the Indy 500 is probably going to get you into an accident one of these days. SLOW DOWN!

5.The more you creepily stalk a person for her parking space, the more likely she will take her time to put her backpack in her trunk, start the car, put on her seatbelt, change the radio station, roll down the windows . . .

6.If you’re going to sleep through every class, don’t bother to come at all! It’s very distracting to those who actually want to learn. Remember, this is college; no one forces you to go to class.

7.For those of you who bike around campus, remember that it takes less time for you to go around me (particularly when I’m already on one side of the sidewalk) than it does to yell at me to get out of the way.

8.Apparently, nowhere in Florida is there a law to yield to pedestrians. It just makes sense, however, when there is a person halfway across the road, to just let them walk to the other side unscathed. I know you have to get to class. Guess what? So does that person, and he was there first.

Just keep these rules in mind, and it will be a better place for all involved. Thanks.

Currently Playing: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – Under the Hedge

In my several years at college thus far, I have noticed something rather frightening.

People are way-too-easily drawn by free stuff.

For example, outside the library (I passed him on my way in to type this) is a man standing behind a table, laden with clipboards, t-shirts, tiny FM radios. Hand-lettered sign proclaim, “2 free gifts with sign up.”

Sign up for what, exactly? A credit card? A bid for one’s blackened soul?

People are lining up, but is anyone asking, “What is it for?” The very words “free stuff” appear to drive rational thought out of many heads.

In this age of technology, anyone can make professional looking documents from the privacy of his own home. For all anyone knows, this guy could just be collecting addresses and telephone numbers under the guise of scrupulousness.

I like freebies as much as the next college student, but be wary when they come at a price. Make sure that so-called free t-shirt or radio is truly worth the trouble!

Perhaps I’m a shade more paranoid than the rest, but, in the end, I feel it’s worth the hassle.

I live near Armwood High School, so I drive past it every morning on my way to USF. It seems they have changed their sign since Thursday:

Grimly amusing that a school, of all places, would have a sign much in need of correction. [Upon looking later, I see that they have been given a grade of “C” on this site].

I have never understood the confusion between plurals and possessives. People are just making more work for themselves. How could someone think “Lemon’s - 4/$1″ looks right? What is the lemon claiming ownership of? Its yellow color? Its pungent aroma? Its propensity to be sold cheaply in Winn Dixie*?

If you were actually writing about those last three, then yes, it’s demanded of you to use the apostrophe.

Again, it’s a sign of a lazy mind, because giving it a second thought would tell you it doesn’t look quite right.

Then again, good grammar usage is in a state of decline. It’s evident that it is not taught as frequently as it should be. I remember working through Reed-Kellogg diagrams in middle school; I hated them, because I thought they were just a waste of paper. Complex sentences were a mess, lines sticking out all over the place. Today, I only recall how to diagram the subject, verb, direct object, and prepositional phrases.

At my previous school (Ramapo College, if you’ve ever heard of it), I took a course entitled “Grammar Theory and Pedagogy.” Seriously considering teaching, I signed up for the course, hoping it would shed some light on effectively teaching grammar.

Imagine my abject disappointment when I discovered that the course centered on the RULES of grammar! Disappointment slowly gave way to delight, however, when I realized how easy the course would be.

And it was. For me. As for the rest, well . . .

Our book took a chapter for each part of speech, wherein it explained, gave examples, and plenty of practice items. Often, we would sit in a circle and go through these tiems, one by one:

Identify the direct object in the sentence: Jimmy threw the ball.

Simple. Sentence. Half of the class (and there were about 30 students) struggled with this. “Um . . . uh . . . Jimmy?”

I would usually drift off during this; if I hadn’t, I might have beaten them bloody with the text.

The scariest part of all was the fact that most of those kids wanted to be teachers. They’ll just be perpetuating the cycle.

Bad grammar, forever and ever, world without end, amen.

*Amusing footnote: I almost wrote A&P here. Guess you can’t take all the Jersey outta me.

I was walking down the back corridor of the College of Education this morning when I saw it - a television mounted over one of the classroom doors. Curiouser, it had a static screen: a green background for salmon-colored text reading “Welcome to the College of Education” (no punctuation; I was rather hoping for an exclamation point. If one is going to go through that sort of trouble, at least pretend to be enthusiastic)!

What is the point of this television “broadcast?”

Further, why is there a TV anyway? It seems rather pointLESS to put it outside a classroom like that. It reminds me of lines for rides at DisneyWorld, where they feel you should be entertained by their insipid channel while you wait an absymally long time to ride Space Mountain.

Currently Playing: Red House Painters “All Mixed Up”

I’ve been on the internet a loooong time. I remember being on dial-up in 1995, using Trumpet Winsock to connect to our local service, getting disconnected every ten or fifteen minutes. . .

Anyway. In that time, I have seen this bleary-eyed web we weave grow unbearable at times. Why? Poor typists abound on the internet.

I realize that they abound offline as well, but here, in this forum, it seems even more prevalent. I’m not just talking about ppl hoo typ liek dis, with or without aLtErNaTiNg CaPs, because that’s been done to death, even by me.

Specifically, it’s a few words that I see misspelled over and over and OVER:
1. definitely
“Definately” “Deffinitly” “deafinetly” are the ones I’ve seen, more of the first one then the latter two.
2. tongue
“tounge” “tungue” “tung” - Um, how could someone even think that that is correct?
3. ridiculous
I see it spelled “rediculous” all the time. However, usually these people manage “ridicule;” it’s just a different part of speech.

There are a few others, but they’re escaping me at this point. They’re of the same caliber as the above two.

I could understand if people did not have resources readily available. Cracking one of those dictionaries is HARD, man! However, this is the internet, and in two clicks, you could have the correct spelling. Answers dot com is one of my new favourite sites. Not only can you check the spelling, you can find out how to say it in other languages (among other things)!

Friends have told me that I am overly pedantic*; I just think it is reflective of a person - not, necessarily, that she’s an idiot for being unable to spell, but being too damned lazy to actually look it up, when a veritable wealth of information IS, literally, at her fingertips, is just pathetic.

*At my former college, I was known by my Pink Pen of Doom; I used to correct posted fliers for spelling and grammar.

It’s strange to be speaking “out into the void” here, as it were. There is a comment function, but no one uses it. I’m not alone in this, however. I skim through the Recently Updated Blogs page (which isn’t all that recent; it’s always hours off) and I find that no one comments on anything.

If this is supposed to be a facilitator for Stroking the College Student’s Ego Whilst S/he Pontificates About Stupid Shit, it’s not working too well, eh?

Currently Playing: Fiona Apple “Better Version of Me”

Upon looking at the recently updated blogs here, I came upon this page, wherein the author was frustrated at being unable to buy something in-store that was on sale, pushing one to purchase it online and wait. My opinion of this is stores such as Walmart and Target are now attempting to compete with Amazon in the online shopping game.

Of course, that’s highly improbable. Amazon has an extensive catalogue, and carries many things that Walmart will never carry, or is afraid to carry.

I really don’t like Walmart, anyway, but my family shops at the Supercenter because it’s close to home and the food is much cheaper. No complaints in 8 months, except for the bathrooms, of course. It seems every Walmart has a filthy bathroom, no matter how clean the rest of the store is. I try not to think of this, however, when I am buying deli items. Otherwise, I would never go back.

[This entry was mainly written to see how the trackback function works. I never used it on my old site].

All of this blank, inviting space. I don’t even know if anyone will really READ this, but I’m procrastinating on a paper, at any rate.

It’s at this point in the semester where you just wish to stop time for a few weeks, so that you can complete all of your projects at a leisurely pace, instead of rushing to finish them, tripping over your shoelaces in the process.

The paper I’m supposed to be writing is for my Human Behavior class; it’s not due for another week, but the book I’m using is due for return on Saturday and I’ve already maxed out my renewals. The book in question is Beyond Freedom and Dignity, by B.F. Skinner. It’s extremely dry and rather boring. Interesting coming from me, a former psychology major!

So, I’m avoiding writing 2000 words on cultural design and social contingencies by uploading this post and making a new mix CD.

Currently playing: The Buggles “The Plastic Age”

It’s really sad that the media only seized on “Video Killed the Radio Star,” as, in my opinion, the rest of this album really DEFINES the 80s sound. You can hear certain elements in groups that would come later.

Then again, I’m a sucker for 80s music. Most do not understand this love I have for the cheesy rock ballads and hair metal. I will defend my love for Bon Jovi to the ends of the earth. Then again, growing up in New Jersey, I think that’s kind of bred into you.

The state of music in Florida depresses me. There don’t seem to be any good radio stations here. Even though K-Rock in New York was getting rather commercial and shitty, it was still ten times better than the stations here. I’ll occasionally listen to the Point (the 80s station), which has such great potential, but it sounds like the same fifty songs over and over!

There are so many directions one can go with a station that purports to play late 70s, all 80s, and early 90s.

How about some punk?
New Wave?
Beuller?

Beuller?

Hmm, don’t know how often I will use this, considering I already have an LJ. I thought I would set it up anyhow, just in case I would like to use it in the future. I’m going to see how this works now . . .