It's a wedding gift kind of night

Tonight, I'm roasting park in the roaster from Mark; cooking yucca root in the skillet from Ryan and Neesha, and cooking pork loin from a recipe in the magazine given by Kevin and Alycia. We're also using napkins given by Erin and dishes given by my Aunt Tanga. Very exciting night.

Big Ten Football is lame

I hate Big Ten football. There is very little interesting about it. I don't know that any of the teams could compete anywhere else. None of them really play anybody good in non-conference. Now, stupid ABC is going to show Ohio State vs. Penn State and Michigan vs. Michigan State as opposed to Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State and Texas vs. Colorado. Why do I only get to see boring games on my television. Why must my football options be so boring? Stupid Big Ten. Go Big XII. I'd much rather watch either of those Big XII games than what is offered to me.

UPDATE: So the ending of the Michigan State vs. Michigan game was unbelievable. Emily, Meredith and I all made good final score picks. The Oklahoma State vs. OU game was way better than Penn St. and Ohio St. I can still bitch about that

I've got your update right here

So, perhaps I don't keep up with this thing enough. My bad. Has anyone seen the Eminem video "Mosh"? That thing is intense. It's intensely anti-Bush and pro-voting. I don't think much of Eminem, but it's nice to see him encouraging people to vote. The video is at mtv.com somewhere.

I think that I might be getting too lazy for grad school. I turned in an awful paper because I hate a class and then I barely study for my econ exam. Maybe I should try. No, definitely I should try. When I was a whee lad, my dad would make me look him in the eye and tell him whether or not I did my best. I'm afraid that my answer may be 'not quite.'

I wonder if Jiggy hates me. I doubt it, but it's possible. Don't hate me Jigs.

I feel a John Kerry blowout coming on. That is, assuming we let non-white Americans vote. It looks like the RNC strategy is to challenge as many minority voters as possible in an effort to depress turnout due to the ensuing long lines. Bastards. I kind of like the RNC implying that the DNC is trying to steal this election. I seem to remember something about Bush stealing an election four years ago. Granted, if it weren't for an incredibly incompetent Gore campaign, it never would have been close enough to steal. Kerry will win Florida, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Arkansas, and Wisconsin. That's my guess.

They say that Ralph Nader and David Cobb may combine for 4% of the vote in Wisconsin. Are people here really that stupid? I know that Madison is a little iffy, but that would be retarded. I feel confident that the Wisconsin voters who effectively eliminated any Dean effect from this race will be smarter than that on the Day of the Dead.

Every once in a while, I say a little prayer of thanks for Wes Clark jumping in and being the attack dog to get rid of Howard Dean. Dean would have killed the party had he won. We certainly didn't need a faux liberal elitist from Vermont as our guy. I didn't then and I don't now see the appeal of Howard Dean. Nobody ever told me why they thought he was a good candidate. I still would have preferred John Edwards to Kerry, but I sort of still get him. That's enough for now.

Damn you to hell, American Prospect

If anybody is interested in seeing a wonderfully irresponsible piece of hacktastic journalism, they've got your stuff over at the American Prospect. Ayelish McGarvey has an awful article about how Bush really isn't a Christian. Now, I've wondered about that myself seeing as how his policy is totally inconsistent with Christian ideology, but that really isn't the place for a journalist to judge. It's a fine subject to discuss over a beer. Religion is as personal a subject as there can be. It's just not right to me to have some outside observer judge the validity of someone else's professed faith. It would be fine if the article pointed out inconsistencies between faith and action and described the faith as potentially misguided. I don't see the point of making the judgement about whether someone whom you don't personally know actually has the beliefs that they profess. It strikes me as more than a little irresponsible.

I am shocked

Okay, I'm not terrible shocked. Of late, I have been accused of having an anti-law student bias. I don't know how anyone could ever get this impression, but nevertheless, it's there. Fear not law students, I still wish to clutch you to my bosom. It's law school that's asking for a whupping though. I would probably be willing to acknowledge an anti northern bias though. For whatever it's worth.

I think it's weird.

I really find it odd that my uncle is a contributor to the National Review and the Heritage Foundation. It's just strange. I don't know how the family that produced someone who thinks the way that I do could have also produced someone who thinks the way he does. He is a bit smarter than me, and everyone else I know, so that's something.

School Times

So it's about a month into my first year of grad school and I have some observations. The thing that I'm most impressed with is how nice and generally pleasant my fellow students are. I'd always dreamed of having a nemesis by this stage of my life, but there's not been any opportunity to pick one up. Another thing that I've noticed is that the very few Republicans in the program haven't had one political thing to say that I haven't first read on the GOP Teamleader website. I wonder if they realize how often they repeat lies to class. My classes are interesting. I'm enjoying statistics. Sometimes I feel like my policy-making process class is an ADHD remedial political science class. The papers will be very worthwhile though. Other than that, I'm generally impressed with the people in the program. Everyone's got a soft spot for jiggy.

Strategery

My first graduate school exam is in less than 18 hours and how did I spend tonight preparing? I went to a rock show. I recommend that everyone do it this way. If there's a curve, we should all be stupid. I went and saw the M's and the Natural History at Catacombs. Now, maybe this is just a rude midwestern thing, but nobody stood up, other than my wife and I, until the Natural History asked them to. I've never been to a show like that. It was ridiculous and rude. It's just common courtesy to stand up for a rock band. Also, Catacombs is some sort of freaky vegetarian coffee shop. I like to say that I don't trust vegetarians, but I have good friends who are vegetarians so I'll lighten up on the rhetoric. What I will say is that I don't care about animal rights. I care about animal rights insomuch as I want them to be treated in such a way that the meat is safest. I'm much more concerned about how the farmers, especially poultry farmers, are treated by agribusiness. Anyway, I felt very out of place, which is pretty much par for the Madison course. Madison just isn't a cool town. It's a good place to go to school, but I'm looking forward to spending some time in Austin over winter break. It'd be nice if there were jobs for people like me there. There aren't though. I still hold out hopes for a consulting firm with Kevin. That's my dream job. Working to reshape the Democratic party in a meaningful way. Back on point, don't study for hard tests. Go to rock shows.

Welcome

My profile views have balooned to eight which I can only take to mean that my readership may be hovering near three or perhaps four. I assume that everyone looks twice. I have two classmates who have blogs. Maybe they came by for a look. They're dual degrees though. You know, law school. Stupid law school. I could totally take law school in a bout of fisticuffs.

So very cold

What's going on with the weather? Isn't it October. I'm used to getting sunburned in October, not wearing three layers. They were thin layers, but still. The Weather Channel says that it's going to be in the 20's when I wake up in the morning. That's not fair. That's not right.

Not reassuring

I spent a couple hours earlier tonight listening to an CIA analyst from the Near East and South Asia team tell me about his job. One thing that stood out was when he mentioned that the team responsible for Pakistan, India, Afghanistan and the like has the biggest workload and the smallest staff of the various CIA teams. I'm not sure that that makes any sense at all to me. Isn't that the region of the world with which we've been having so many problems lately? That was my understanding anyway. On another note, the CIA gives out pencils, post-it notes, pens, lapel pins, and other neat stuff when they make recruiting visits. Suck on that law school. As a rule, I will begin picking a fight with law school in all of my future posts. When I say law school, I don't many any specific law school, more the concept of law school. For those that know me, this is much like my declaration of war against Sonic when I worked at Thundercloud. It's more for my amusement than anything else. It's especially fun when you consider that my best friend is in law school. That's why I'm not picking fights with law students. I do have my suspicions about you dual degree folks. You've been warned.

Hey Kevin

So, perhaps this will work. Happy Birthday to you. Incidentally, I don't know any Law School students at the University of Wisconsin who dress better than me. Some have suggested that Public Affairs students can't dress ourselves. Tsk tsk.