August 31, 2004
HAVE YOU SEEN THESE MICE??
Ok, technically, Milton is dead (who would not sing for Lycidas / He knew himself to sing), but really all mice look the same. Last week I broke their tank while cleaning it, and today Blake and Pope made a jailbreak. Their temporary plastic crate was no match for Pope's sharp little teeth, so now they're somewhere in my house, or possibly in our yard. I tried to get a have-a-heart trap, but by the time the local baptists had finished proselytizing to us (don't ask) the store was closed. I think they might be gone forever.
Farewell Blake. Farewell Pope. I shall never forget thee!
Posted by Drew at 09:00 PM | Comments (56) | TrackBack
For Example . . .
Today in class we studied parts of speech. I asked all the students to write a sentence which included a common noun, a proper noun, a verb and an adjective. Olesha called me over very earnestly to review her sentence. It read:
"The teacher, Mr. Courtney, dances fast and poorly."
The only thing that made me sad was that she forgot to use an adjective.
Posted by Drew at 08:39 PM | Comments (77) | TrackBack
August 30, 2004
Crappy teaching, 101
Today was not my finest teaching day. I was pretty out of it in terms of actually "teaching" and spent a lot of first period saying "umm . . .um . . " and so on.
On the bright side, I did harvest this kernel of wisdom from a sixth grader:
"If you made a skyscraper out of cornbread, as soon as you made it, it would fall down."
In context it almost, almost, made sense.
Posted by Drew at 09:52 PM | Comments (71) | TrackBack
Worst. Convention. Ever.
Wow. This convention is even worse than I thought it would be. First of all, the GOP couldn't even muster enough decency to allow for any dissent in their platform: all anti-choice, all anti-gay, all the time. Call me a raging liberal, but I don't really see how being gay is "incompatible" with military service. Incompatible with voting for Bush? Yes. Incompatible with drinking Coors lite from a can? Sure. But fighting for one's country? I think not.
Then, they apparently refused to let any black people in. Observe the following photo. Don't try to tell me "I saw one black guy in the choir," because as we all know, African-Americans are allowed to be performers. That doesn't count. (Also note: caucasians with a tan do not count as hispanic.)
Next, these people don't even seem to be trying to escape 1992. I'm as big a fan of country music as the next yuppie intellectual, but c'mon people. And a fake news reporter? Jeeze! You already have Fox and now you need more fake news? Someone's getting greedy! All told, the thing looks like it was coordinated by a high school A/V club.
And finally, for the love of God, DO NOT ALLOW REPUBLICANS TO DANCE!!! I mean no offense, but when the off-tempo clapping starts the whole thing starts to look like a retarded texan convention. Wait a minute . . .
In conclusion, even John McCain's decent but thoroughly uninspiring speech couldn't add a touch of class to this writhing mass of evil calling out for the blood of innocents and the ritual execution of Democrats everwhere. I return to my thesis: worst convention ever.
Somewhere, Lincoln is crying.
Posted by Drew at 09:40 PM | Comments (54) | TrackBack
August 29, 2004
Protests Protests Protests
Thus far my opinion on the protests in NY has been mixed. On one hand I really don't see these protests as doing much to affect the outcome of the election (an outcome which seriously needs to be affected.) Seriously, who, other than myself, spent more than two minutes watching the live coverage on C-SPAN?
On the other hand, the right to peaceful protest is so intrinsic to a functioning democracy that without that right, "democracy" no longer describes the system of government in power. Powerful protest is a sign of a healthy nation. Seeing so many people who care about the result of an election, any election, is heartening.
Damn, did I not get anything done today. I hope you all enjoy this new page because putting it together took all the time I was going to devote to "planning" today. Oops.
Posted by Drew at 09:51 PM | Comments (59) | TrackBack
Welcome to the new blog
Welcome to my new blog!
Ok, it's really not new at all. It's mostly just the same old ranting in a new format. I made this change for a few reasons.
(1) This MT thing makes me look smarter, I think. Even if I had to make Rob do all the hard work for me. Yeah.
(2) Easy updates (ie- no Netscape, no Geocities) means more updates. Ok, maybe that's a negative.
(3) Dude, even with these preset colors (pattern stolen all on my own), it looks so cool!
(4) I wanted to get in with these rockstars at courtney5.us before they got too popular to hang out with me.
(5) Some fool said that s/he would like to be able to make comments. As you can see, comments are welcome, but don't feel pressured. Really, I can take it.
So, um that's it. Same old ranting, now with the ability to rant back. Cool
Posted by Drew at 06:43 PM | Comments (51) | TrackBack