Don't believe what those so-called "scientists" tell you...

The human body was originally designed to live in hot water. Maybe we've come from a planet where the entire surface is covered in three to five feet of water at roughly 150 degrees ferenheit, or maybe the earth itself used to be like that, and some environmental catastrophe destroyed our hot water paradise, but the fact of the matter is that the ideal environment for human existence is hot water. I don't mind telling you, I could've stayed in that shower all day if the hot water hadn't stopped coming. True story. Of course, my theory might imply that in its ideal environment, the human body is a formless pink prune-looking thing, and that wouldn't really be conducive to the already difficult (or perhaps not difficult enough) task of propogating the species. Yeah, probably wouldn't happen.
Cedar roping and Christmas lights still grace various surfaces throughout the house, and pine needles are beginning to pile up on the carpet, in anticipation of Christmas get-together number three, due to take place in a few more days. Much as I love seeing relatives, and much as I appreciate their interest in my life, I'd kill to have no one ask me anything about myself, my education, my employment prospects, etc... Hm. Now that I think of it, that's probably a bad thing. It might mean that I should either be happy enough about where I am in life to not mind telling people about it, or should be doing something worth talking about. I suppose that I could always scare them into praying for me by telling them that all I want to do with my life is ride a skateboard and play guitar all the time, occasionally breaking to smoke a cigarette, or get a new tatoo. Of course, those who know me well enough to know that I hate smoke, have no tatoos, and can't skateboard or ride guitar might not be fooled that easily. Details schmetails, I just need to tweak my dreams a bit. Hm... Rodeo rider? Nah, they'd never beleive it. Astronaut? Nope, they'd just tell me that on the way to doing that I could become a successful engineer. Blah, I suppose that I might as well bite my lip and succumb to the onslaught.

Christmas Eve-ish

Hello. I don't suppose that between travelling to in-laws and shopping till you feel like droppings and chesnuts roasting on an open fire right down Santa Claus Lane you feel particularly up to reading this thing, but I feel like writing on it, and as the title implies, it's all about me, baby. It's Christmas time, which still feels wonderful to say if you stop and think about it, but you have to be careful about context and traffic signals and all. I was doing some shopping for gifts this week (yeah, I know, shock), and it struck me just now that I didn't really do so with all that much attention paid to giving the darn things. I just wanted to give the gifts that I would be expected to give, and hopefully no one would hate what I gave them, and within a few weeks they'd forget that it was me who gave them that thing that they never use. I was reflecting on this with a friend, and for some reason the ever popular A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens came to mind, where Scrooge wakes up on Christmas day and, feeling as if he's got a new lease on life, sends a boy off to find a huge turkey, and then sends the turkey to his faithful and impoverished employee's family. My thought process didn't exactly make a lot of sense, but the scene popped into my head because the gift of turkey wasn't expected. Scrooge just felt so darn Christmasy that he sent the biggest turkey money could find off to the Cratchets, unsolicited (now that I think of it, Cratchet's a sort of a silly sounding name, but I'm no Charles Dickens). God bless us every one indeed. I realize that this was important because earlier in the story he's the stingiest man alive, but it still managed to make me feel silly for just buying presents because that's what you do for Christmas. No, I'm not trying to make some point about how our beloved holiday has become too commercialized and all that, goodness knows that if that's what you want to hear there are plenty of people to say it to you, I'm just trying to say that for me at least, the whole thing can get so automatic. You put up a tree, you buy gifts for the people you like and a few people who you don't like, but it would be socially difficult to get away with not giving them gifts, you decorate your house, you make one hell of a meal (not to mention the cookies-you can't forget those), you wear a few garments for the first time since they were given to you last Christmas, you think about the poor in our cities and our soldiers in foriegn countries for a few days, and when it's all over you drag the tree out to the curb (or put it in its box back in the basement if you're one of those people), clean up the wrapping paper and various nondescript spills, and go back to your everyday existence, because that's what you do for Christmas. Hopefully somewhere in the middle of all that you also manage to sit down and spend a few precious hours with those people, but some people don't. I guess I'm just bemoaning (I know, it's so unlike me to bemoan anything) how taken-for-granted it all is, at least by me, when Christmas itself is so deliberate. What makes Christmas special is that God himself deliberately did what was not expected of him by anyone and became Man. The world changed. Man's relationship with God and with creation was altered. God humbled himself so much as to become a man! Anyways, I guess I'm just trying to say merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you, sorry if I got a little wordy in there. Do your shopping, cook your turkeys, say a prayer for the poor and the sick, don't forget to ask for peace in the world and try to have faith that someone can deliver it. Put up a big Christmas tree and decorate it with as little attention to home decorating conventions as possible (let's face it, a dying evergreen tree covered with trinkets and lights is never going to be all that tasteful, might as well have some fun). Smile when you're driving alone at night and you pass by a life-sized nativity scene, and every time someone tells you "Happy Holidays," respond with an even more cheerful "Merry Christmas," and try to say it like you've never gotten to say it to anyone before, and it's been all bottled up inside of you. Aw heck, you know what to do much better than I do. Merry Christmas, I hope that it's one full of joy, love, and peace.

I'll be home for Christmas...

Heya kids! Sorry that I completely dropped the ball on posting for over two weeks, I hope that someone still reads this. My only excuse is that blogging is rightfully not among the highest of my priorities, and just to give perspective on the last week, neither are sleeping and eating. Still, whiner-uh, martyr that I am, I suffered through it all with herculean fortitude, or something. All in all, finals weren't all that bad, and I managed to take a break on the weekend in the middle of them long enough to bruise my tailbone in an embarrasing sledding accident. I spent the next few days cautiously sitting down in the most comfortable chairs I could find, and then slowly adjusting my weight so as not to put any on the afflicted tailbone. The worst part about the whole sore bum incident was that there was no way to garner the least bit of pity from my peers, who were too amused after hearing that I had fallen on my arse while attempting to sled down a hill standing up on the sled to muster up even the least bit of convincing sympathy. I'm a martyr, what can I say?
In any case, I finished with my last final on Wednesday morning, after spending the night in the snack bar frantically studying for the thing and consuming enough coffee to kill Keith Richards, and on Wednesday evening I headed home, having made sure that I'd forgotten at least one thing that I'd want during my nearly month-long break. In all seriousness, I should plan ahead next time to bring something that I don't need, and then I can plan to forget it, even though I'm also planning to bring it. Much simpler, you see.
The last few days have been pretty busy, but with nothing unpleasant, catching up with friends and family and going to parties and such. Nothing to complain about there, even for me. That's all for now with the life update, but here's one more thing a friend sent to me: If you copy the link below into your web browser, and follow some directions, you should be able to watch a fun video of someone taking this whole Christmas thing entirely too far. Enjoy!

www.snopes.com/photos/arts/xmaslights.asp

A day late and a dollar short

Greetings, friends! I hope that you're all well. Life's a bit crazy for the next little while, but I figured I have to update in order to keep at least one of you reading this silly thing, since my last post is two weeks old. Thanksgiving was wonderful, I got to spend some time with people who I'd been missing, eat a lot of food, hold my new neice for a bit, go bowling, make a snowman, and dance the night away. Ok, so I lied about the dancing the night away thing, you caught me. Papers are progressing slowly, but I'll have them done on time, since that's my only option. Tests are coming up, but so far I've been in good health, so I may beat my two-year streak of being ill during finals, but I shouldn't jinx that. I submitted my application to graduate from this fine institution of higher learning today, and baring the possibility of failing any of my classes I'll bid adieu to Hillsdale College in may. On one hand, that seems like a very long time, but on the other hand, not so much. It's Advent, which is nice. I tend to need every reminder possible that nothing's forever and He's coming back at some point. It beats getting bogged down in the day-to-day stuff, which I have a tendency to do. My room's cluttered with laundry dirty and clean, books and papers and class handouts and writing utensils everywhere. Nothing's where I once decided it should be. I find that my room often serves as a metaphor, or maybe just a direct reflection of the rest of my life, so I'd better clean up and organize both. Days seem shorter this time of year, and I sometimes wonder where all the time I used to have is gone, and why I've accomplished so much less than I set out to. I guess that's life, though. Echoes and whispers and walks on moonlit nights where you can see your breath and your ears get so cold that they hurt all pile up like words on a page that nobody bothered to organize into complete sentences and thoughts, and no one seems to be going anywhere but they're always walking anyways. Cars can slide on roads better than they roll sometimes, and things can fall apart much easier than they can be accomplished most of the time, not much we can do about that than put the cork back on the chablis, get up outta the easy chair and keep trying to treadmill uphill. Yessir, we run a tight ship around here, as long as time keeps breathing down our necks, but don't expect too much or else you'll be angry as hell when you find out your snot-nosed brat got that tatoo without asking you, and she's hanging out with absolutely the wrong kind of sweater-wearing pansy. Hell, he might even play guitar, and you know those guys ain't goin' nowhere. Light, smoke, crash, burn, et cetera, you couldn't hit the floor unless you fell on it, which you're probably going to do pretty soon.

I'm going to be so hot in Japan...

So I was walking out of Hillsdale's NASCAR-themed diner after brunch on Sunday with a few compadres, when a trio of well-dressed Japanese people who looked so far out of their element that they might as well have come from another planet walked up to me with a TV camera and a microphone and politely asked if I knew anything about Michael Sessions, our new 18-year-old mayor. They explained that they were the New York-based American correspondents for some Japanese TV station or another, gathering "people on the streets" segments for their coverage of Sessions' election. I warned them of my lack of informedness, but since they're the media they seemed to welcome this, so they stuck a camera and a microphone in my face and I told them that I knew very little about the whole ordeal and was somewhat skeptical of the ability of someone to fulfil civil service who has only just become eligible to vote, but that I admire his ambition, they asked a few more random opinion questions, and we parted ways. I sort of expected to run into Rod Serling on the way back to the car, but he didn't show up, so I'm compelled to beleive that the surreal episode really happened. There were even witnesses. Weird.

Not to degrade the folks, they had to drive their news van out from NY to some obscure hick town in Michigan and they have my pity, but why does anyone in Japan care about Michael Sessions? I barely care, and I've lived in this town for the last three school years (no, I'm not registered to vote here). In other election news, although you've probably both heard by now, everyone's favorite thug named Kwame somehow managed to get re-elected to the Mayorship of Detroit this month, despite rampant and well-known corruption throughout his administration. The only effect this has had on me personally thus far is that I've ceased to feel sorry for Detroit the way I used to. At this point, they've got what they deserved. Get elected once, shame on Kwame. Get elected twice? Shame on Detroit. Shame.

Today I had to bring the trusty carhart out of retirement, and I expect that it will probably stay in use until March. It really has been beautiful, though. Even as I write there's a light dusting of snow blowing around in the heavy winds, and if I step outside, my face will be frozen within a few seconds. Ah, winter.

Finally, I've stolen some pictures from the inimitable Jonathan Walker's blog (http://corkfork.blogspot.com/), which he took at a recent Searching For Shoes gig, again featuring yours truly on bass. Enjoy!

Noah on guitar

Tory on vocals and keys, and me on bass

Josh on drums

Cameron stepped in to work his magic on the keys for one song, and a splendid time was had by all. That's all for now I hope you're both having a great week thus far. Thanksgiving is only a week away...

November, Part II

I did it again this morning. After showering and brushing my teeth, I put shaving cream into my hand, put it on my face, rinsed the excess shaving cream off my hand, and shaved (No, I promise I won't give you my whole day with this much detail). Why is it that I never manage to put the right amount of shaving cream in my hand? I always, always put too much shaving cream on my hand, and then always end up rinsing it down the drain. I've been shaving how long? Since I was fourteen? I don't even know. Ye gads, how much shaving cream have I wasted in that time? How much money have I wasted on shaving cream that I never ended up using? Aaaaaaaaah! I'm a failure! Ok, sorry. That was the random thought of the day, I apologize. The rest of the day was pretty normal (actually, come to think of it, so was shaving), not much to report. It's been quite windy today, and for the first time in years I had short hair and wanted to wear a hat. This is not to say that I haven't worn hats in years, mind you, I often wear hats. Ok, why am I even talking about this? Moving along.

Reens finally got her Lucy pics developed and sent them to me this morning, I have to admit that I got a bit choked up. I haven't seen every baby in the world ever, but she definitely has to be the most gorgeous of the bunch. Alright, this is ridiculous. I'm giving up sleep to post on my stupid blog. I'm going on my evening walk, and then to bed. Good night.

November

A cloudy autumn day today, although not especially cold. The past weekend's wind and rain have taken the majority of the leaves off of the trees, but they haven't lost their color yet, and now colorfully blanket the ground, offering a nice contrast to the sky above, and the moist air carries the familiar and somehow comforting scent of dying leaves.
Life's busy as it always is, but I'm trying to look at it as an adventure more than just drudgery, the way I see it the difference is mostly in the way you approach it. It certainly doesn't always work, and sometimes I catch myself wishing I was at home. Somehow after three years here it still doesn't feel much like home. Campus life can still seem like a strange environment at times, with the irregular schedule, and the fact that everyone I relate to is within three years of my own age and doing almost exactly the same thing with their life at the moment. Oh well. Like I said, it's not bad. It just feels odd when I stop and think about it.
Last night I spent about an hour playing bass with some friends on a few tunes, which was fun. I looked up while playing to see at my own reflection in a pane of glass, and couldn't help but remark "Man, that guy looks old." Not especially old in a practical sense, I'm barely in my early twenties for crying out loud, just older than the seventeen-year-old with long hair and baggy jeans who used to play that bass. Even now, the image in my mind of me in a flannel shirt and jeans, with a beard and the increasingly apparent early symptoms of male-pattern baldness is sadly comical. I'm not saying that I'm especially more mature than I used to be (I suppose that the contrary is even possible), but then I guess I'm not really sure what I'm saying at all. It was just odd, that's all. Either way, don't put on any airs when you're down on Rue Morgue Avenue, I hope you're enjoying the autumn weather, and that life isn't too busy to stop and sit down every now and again, but I guess that if it wasn't you wouldn't have time to read this, would you? Come to think of it, I shouldn't have the time to sit down and write this nonsense. In spite of that, I'm sure that the slacker hidden not-so-deeply under my skin will come out again to put up tommorow's ramblings, so check back if you think to.

Donna eis requiem

A bit of a crazy week thus far, although that doesn't leave me too much of my own life that's actually worth relating. "Today, I did homework and took tests, and tommorow I'm writing a paper." Fantastic. The good news of the day (and good news it is) is that my first neice was born today, a healthy little kiddo with blue eyes (duh), weighing in at a little over eight pounds. She was born at about noon, and I got the news a little after two, which for my family may in fact be the fastest communication on record. Anyways, that's far and away the coolest thing to happen all week. The only problem is that the kid was born just a few days after the end of my four-day weekend at home, and there's almost no chance whatsoever of my being able to come home this comming weekend, which leaves the time at which I'll be able to meet the new bundle of joy a complete mystery. Oh well, I'll figure something out. The rest of the week is looking about par for the course, research to be doing for papers to be writing, piano lesson to practice for, my life to sort out, etc... The break was a lot of fun, I didn't really do much except hang out with sibs and friends and girlfriend and go to a few parties. Considering that I don't usually celebrate holloween, this one was actually pretty fun, and I getting to see my friends in goofy costumes was nothing but a good time. Anyways, that's all for now. I'm sorry about the relative brevity of today's post, I'll try to give more updates as events occur.

"We're gonna break the monster's back"

"The Edge is from the future" explained Bono, in a really weird introduction to the song "Miracle Drug," from U2's newest record How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Silly as the following ad-libbed story about Edge's (yeah, that's what he calls himself) arrival in Dublin on a spaceship may have been, I'm tempted to agree with Bono's (again, yeah) assertion about his bandmate. From the opening notes of "City of Blinding Lights," through the rattle and hum of "Bullet The Blue Sky" (during which Bono sang lines from "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" and Edge went into a lengthy prog-rock solo), to an acoustic encore of "Stuck in a Moment" and "Yaweh," and not forgetting to stop along the way to play such classics as "With Or Without You," "I Will Follow," and "Still Haven't Found," (to name a few), the band put on what I can only describe as one heluva concert. Bono's dramatic flair, not to mention his great vocals, was out in full force, The Edge was rocking his guitar like the world was about to end and he knew how to get off of it, and Larry and Adam (who either couldn't think up funny pseudonyms for themselves or shunned them in an attempt at balancing things) rocked steadily and heavily enough to keep it all perfectly together. Showmanship and spectacle were also a big part of the show, with crazy lighting, crowd pleasing antics, and the slight smile that stayed on Adam's face for the entire show.A highlight for me was when the lights went up to reveal Larry Mullen and half of a drum kit moved to the front of the circular stage (it encompassed part of the audience), from which he dramatically played the song standing up, until the bridge, at which point he ran back to his kit at the back of the stage, leaving Bono at the front of the stage to don a white headband and bang on the drums like an excited child, until Larry Started the now instantly recognizeable drum intro to "Sunday Bloody Sunday." So cool.
Anyhoo, I'm going on break starting after class tommorow and lasting until monday, which I'm ridiculously excited about, so between an amazing concert, three days of classes, and a four-day weekend, this is looking to be a pretty darn cool week. Anyways, I wish you all a good week whatever you're doing, maybe I'll run into some of you in the next few days. Here's another few pictures of u2 live, although none of them were taken by me.Yay Larry! Yay normal-named members of U2!

"My mind is on the brink..."

Hello one and one. Thanks to Gec and Reens for eventually posting on last week's balogna (no pun intended) post. Yes, I am aware of how bad it was. That said, our commitment to mediocrity here at D.Cous. Enterprises ensures that last week's post will most likely not go down on record for any period of time as our worst post. Also, it appears that I was wrong in my calculation of a good time to post regularly on this thing, since I said Tuesday Afternoon, and the last three posts have been a full day later. So, how does Wednesday sound? Good? Good. The week thus far has been a bit exhausting, due to an abnormal load of papers and tests and all. I didn't get anything done school-wise over the weekend, as I skipped town on Friday and headed up to pay a visit to the girlfriend. I apparently picked both a good and a bad weekend to do so (not that I really picked the time, I was invited), since I had a great time visiting Lindsey, but two of my brothers called me to invite me to stuff back home that same weekend. All in all, I got the better end of the deal to be sure, but I did miss a rock concert with Neil and Garrett, and an epic U of M game with B. Why do I not get calls like this on the weekends when I'm going home? The weekend was fun, Saturday was big for college football, which we followed on and off while tailgaiting at the Grand Valley vs. Saginaw Valley game with some of Lindsey's friends and some folks from the community there (I got a few of those "I knew your parents years ago" introductions). I met my oldest brother's fifth grade teacher, and my sister's former roomate's mother (no kidding, it's that small a world). The game itself was crowded and very spirited, I'm pretty confident that I was the only one in the student section who was wearing a Hillsdale sweatshirt (GVSU and SVSU both destroyed my school this year). We also (at Lindsey's insistence) went and saw the film Serenity over the weekend, which was not the best space western I've ever seen (yes, there are more, and I know how nerdy that claim makes me sound), but it was really pretty entertaining. That may not actually be a controlled experiment in film reviewing though, since watching nearly any movie with Lindsey is funnier, and no, I'm not trying to sound cute. She pointed out/made fun of the fonts used for every peice of text in the credits and previews (the text in the movie, except for the name of the ship, is all in chinese for some reason, I guess the future's weird). Anyways, I should go in search of my first meal of the day, maybe I'll add in smaller posts from time to time inbetween the weeklies. Over and out.

Is you is or is you ain't roast beef?

I was watching telly the other day (a generally bad idea), and saw a commercial for an Arby's (TM) sandwich. There was nothing particularly interesting about this commercial, except that it revived the old question in my mind: What is it about Arby's roast beef that makes it look and taste nothing at all like regular roast beef? I admit that this isn't a question for the ages, but I didn't set up this blog as a philosophy message board. Who knows? Maybe future philosophers and historians will one day look back at us with the four eyes that will become a common trait among the few surface-dwellers left after the inevitable nuclear holocost and wonder what our obsession was with roast beef that wasn't really roast (and probably not beef), with yellow-colored vegetable oil that's supposed to look like butter, with soybean byproducts that are molded into the shape of turkeys, and most of all, what exactly was bologna? After spending hours of the day contemplating this, they'll probably have their trained space apes carry their hideously shrivelled bodies down to the Temple of Forseable Outcomes, where they'll play ceremonial chess games in which the kings and queens have hemophilia and die after three turns. Whoa, don't know where that came from. Anyways, it has been said by certain people that they do not read my blog posts because I don't break them up into paragraphs, so how about I do this:

There, that ought to keep things interesting. I saw the new Wallace & Grommit movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312004/) the other day, which was a lot of fun. At about three bucks, the movie ticket wasn't really a huge investment, but I have to admit that having rather liked the three previous W & G short films, I did have relatively high hopes. It was a bit funny going to this movie, since at 21, my two friends and I realized quickly that we were the only people in the theater who were anywhere near our age. The majority of the theater was full of children (not surprisingly, it's a cartoon), accompanied in a ratio of about 3:1 by either a parent (the youngest of whom were probably around thirty), or grandparent. After sitting through a string of previews for the seemingly endless fart joke that they're calling this year's family film offering, Dreamworks S.K.G. (the distributors, but not the producers of W & G and Chicken Run, both made by Ardman Animations LLC) treated us to a computer-animated short film, apparently in an effort to prove to us once and for all that they are not, much as they would like to be, Pixar. Sorry guys. Whoops, time for another paragraph break.

Whew! After showing their logo a few more times (Jonathan pointed out that Dreamworks would really really like you to associate them with this movie), the film finally got started, and all was right with the world. All in all, I would have to give the movie a rather favorable rating (I don't beleive in stars or thumbs or whatever else), since I think that I laughed louder than any of the children in the theater, and probably even loud enough to wake a few of the grandparents. The stop-motion (nope, not an oxymoron) animated film stars Inventor and Cheese enthusiast Wallace and his anthropomorphic (yet speachless) dog Gromit as high-tech pest control specialists in a vegetable-crazed village somewhere in rural England, who must deal (humanely of course, this is a children's movie) with an infestation of rabbits who threaten the village's gardens on the eve of the annual produce festival. If this doesn't have the makings of a great film, I don't know what does. As in previous (although shorter) Wallace & Gromit outings, (hang on, another paragraph break, this time mid-sentence)

sight gags and all-around Britishness abound (at one point an angry mob runs to a stand labled "Angry Mob Supplies" to buy pitchforks and torches), with perhaps two jokes being more off-color than you would expect in a G-rated movie. Whoops! Out of time for today. If you happen to have children to bring to this movie (not that I do) I'd reccomend it, or if you're like me and aren't terribly embarrased about watching cartoons. I hope you are all having a good week, more to come!

Who needs punctuality when you can have tardiness for free?

Hello whoever and however numerous you may be, at least I check this thing. Please forgive two late posts in as many weeks, where have my manners gone? I just don't know what I shall do with myself. There's an interesting article in Today's paper, which I unfortunately cannot link you to (the Wall Street Journal's online edition is a separate subscription), but thought was nonetheless intriguing: A small, obscure organization of New England history buffs called the Aaron Burr Association (I know, sounds like a good band name) has come forward with the news that they've discovered a living direct descendant of our nation's third vice president, more famous for being the man who killed founding father Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804. Burr was married in 1782 to a British army officer's widow, a woman ten years his senior, with whom he had one daughter named Theodosia (What an awful name! True, it was her mother's name as well, but that's hardly an excuse). The couple also had one son who died in infancy (unfortunately quite common at the time), and Theodosia is not known to have had any children, so that Burr was heretofore considered to be without direct descendant. Enter Mrs. Louella Burr Mitchell Allen, a retired nurse who now resides in Philedelphia, whose family has an oral history and some sparse documentation that links her to Philedelphia barber and free black abolitionist John Pierre Burr, allegedly the illegitamate son of Aaron Burr by one of his household servants (Whew! that seemed less complicated before I decided to write it all down). In any case, this claim (although no DNA testing has occured) has been quite welcomed by the Aaron Burr Association, who are eager to garner new information and clear their namesake's good... uh, name. Yeah. The big problem with this is that like many illegitamate families, there really isn't much documentation or concrete evidence of anything that Mrs. Allen can bring forward to do this, all she can say is that her wing of the Burr family always thought well of Grandpa Aaron (Actually, Great-great-great-grandpa Aaron), even though he was too busy not being married to grandma and running for political offices to really be around all that much. Maybe I'm not much of a historian, but I'll actually be dissapointed if the new findings clear up the Burr story much. I don't really want the truth to be buried, but the story as it stands is a pretty good one, if it's true. Burr's a genuine piece of American history: This guy was the great grandson of evangelist/revivalilst Jonathan Edwards. He was at Valley Forge with Washington. In the election of 1800, he ran for vice president alongside Thomas Jefferson. The problem is that our electoral system at the time was not quite the well-oiled machine that it is now (seriously, it's gotten a lot better), and the ticket was not technically divided. This means that everyone who voted for Jefferson also voted for Burr (naturally, since they were running together for President and Vice President), so that when the votes were counted it was determined that they had tied. No, I'm not kidding. Anyhow, in the event of this happening it's supposed to go to congress to decide the winner (U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section I). The general story goes (as I recall) that Burr saw here an opportunity to win the presidency for himself, which would've been the most cowboy move in American history had Burr's old law partner and former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton not used his influence with key members of congress to push things in Jefferson's direction (Congress voted a tie 35 times before finally choosing Jefferson). The behind-the-scenes rivalry between Burr and Hamilton continued, with Burr blaming Hamilton for his political failures including his loss in the election to the governorship of New York in 1804, until July 11, 1804, when Burr (still Vice President of the United States, mind you) shot Hamilton at ten paces in a duel. A duel! Not every day you hear about that happening. Nobody was jailed, no cops were called. The Vice President shot the former Secretary of the Treasury! Actually they both fired, but Hamilton, who'd spent his military career as Washington's aide-de-camp and not in a combat command, missed. Burr was later accused of trying to start a war with Spain in order to grab some of the Western territories belonging to spain and start a new country, but he was acquitted. His first wife had died after twelve years of marraige in 1794 (but I'd say the spark of the relationship was gone beforehand, since Mrs. Allen's great-great-grandfather was reportedly born a few years before then), and he did not remarry until he was 77 years old in 1833, when he wed another widow. That one didn't last all that long either, since she left him and sued for divorce within a year of the wedding, which he finally granted her on the day he died, in 1836. Well, that's a little bit 'o history for you this week. I hope you didn't learn too much, partly because you've probably heard all of this before at some point, and partly because I'm pulling much of this from memory and it's probably not all factually true. In any case I wish you a good week, feel free to post and say hello at any time. I must now go off to my tennis class (yes I'm taking one, and yes it's to fulfil a phys. ed. requirement), hopefully to improve on my partner's and my own fortunes from the first round of our class' mixed doubles tournament, in which we were destroyed. Oh yeah, in the interest of respecting the law, my sources for this post were primarily Greg Ip's article in today's Wall Street Journal entitled Fans of Aaron Burr Find Unlikely Ally In a 'New' Relative, And the following web sites: http://www.ushistory.org/valleyforge/served/burr.html ; http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa . Thanks for checking in!

"It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights..."

Hey all, sorry about missing my posting time last night, I was a bad combination of sick and stressed about the midterm I had this morning. The midterm's passed and the sickness hasn't, but now I'm sitting in my living room in pajamas with my laptop watching The Muppet Show with a few housemates, so life's officially not that bad. The week thus far has passed without much of note happening except getting sick on Sunday and staying that way for the rest of the week. I've had two quizzes, a miterm and I have to write a paper today to turn in tommorow, but things shouldn't really heat up in terms of school for another week or two, these are mostly minor. The midterm today went relatively well, I think, except that I couldn't remember what the French equivalent of "sincerely yours" is (Yes, they have one. I know you were thinking that they're probably too rude to end a letter with something like that). Oh well. That's all for now, more to come.

"The sea it swells like a sore head..."

Hey folks! I know that this isn't the time I said I'd post, but I thought that you might enjoy these pictures of a gig I played at a coffehouse last friday, as bass player for the band Searching For Shoes. We only rehearsed once for the gig, so the set was mostly covers of well-known songs that would be easy to learn, and/or songs that three out of the four of us performed several months ago with now departed (transferred to another school) drummer Scott D. The personnel for the night included Noah K. on guitar and vocals, Tory M. on piano and vocals, Josh P. on drums, and yours truly on bass. Hillsdale's resident blues guitar god Andrew F. (sorry, not pictured) also sat in on for a fun cover of CCR's "Green River," which I thought was pretty darn cool.

Now I know what some of you are probably thinking: When did Collin learn to play the bass guitar? I don't usually think that I look especially like him, but this photo rather does. Sorry Collin, but you still can't have my "The Darkness" t-shirt.

Josh and Tory

Noah, Me, and you can see Josh's hands there in the background.

There we go. Left to right is Noah, Josh, Me, Tory. This and all photos are courtesy of Jonathan Walker.

Whoops! Heh heh, I wish. No, this was definitely not us.

Hello?

Testing... testing... for the next several minutes, we will be conducting a test of our emergency broadcast system. Pay no attention to the sounds of carnage and mayhem in the background, they are entirely artificial and an essential part of the exercise.

Once again into the abyss...

In the next world war
In a jackknifed juggernaut
I am born again
In the neon sign scrolling up and down
I am born again

-Radiohead, "Airbag" from Ok Computer

Well, you heard me swear that I'd only use blogger to keep everyone abreast of my European adventures, and now you can see me go back on my word. Yep, that's me. It turns out that my last blogger experiment was a more effective way to keep in touch with friends and family members than I thought it would be (some cool folks even started blogger accounts just to be able to post), so here I am again. Of course, since I'm no longer in Europe (beleive me, I'm as dissapointed as you are), I have no idea whether anyone will still care to check this thing, but here's hoping. I'm thinking that the basic format will be one post per week, and at this point I'm shooting for Tuesday afternoons or nights as the posting time, as that's a relatively vacant posting time, but that may be flexible. I will most likely give a short summary of my life that week, but due to the repetitiveness of my everyday life, I'll probably throw in tidbits about current events or whatever I'm reading or watching or listening to as filler. Yes, I am aware that this is exactly what everyone (at least everyone who doesn't fancy themself a pundit) does with a blog, but I promise I'll try to make it worth your while to stop by from time to time and see what I'm up to. That's all for now, I hope to hear from you all soon.

Scatterbrained.

Technical difficulties have doubtless caused the fall of many a great man.