And when the dam bursts we'll all float back to from whence we came.

Ok, I usually avoid the news during election years, but the other day I stumbled across more evidence that New York City and its denizens are not of this earth. Yeah, crazy. I suppose that after you make it illegal to smoke in bars (Earth to New York and its wannabes: they're BARS!), this was the next logical step. The only thing left for them to do is to have social workers sitting in bathrooms to make sure we wipe our arses and wash our hands (Incidentally, this is what my girlfriend does for a living, heh heh). I don't think this will really go through this time around (wait a few years), but all the same I'd check the campaign funds of NYC politicians for money soaked in Canola oil, or whatever is you substitute for hydrogenated oils. On the other hand, I might be too cynical. Maybe they're not actually trying to grease their palms with campaign funds and they're not actually insane. Of course, the only option that leaves is that they're just trying to prepare the way for the mother ship. I'm pretty sure that I don't want some politician on a mission telling me what they think I should be eating. All I have to say is that they can have my fragel... when they pry it from my cold, dead fingers! By the way, it has come to my attention that not everybody knows what a fragel is, or why it is the best thing ever invented by man. All I can say is that if it's been more than a week since you last had a fragel, go get one.
In other news, I'm afraid we have seen the public disgrace of yet another once-beloved hero of our childhood. I'm never surprised to see another very unflattering photo a messy-haired movie star or athelete with a cocaine mustache staring at me from the cover of a tabloid in the supermarket checkout isle with some headline about spousal abuse while driving while under the influence of drugs, but I expected better than this from Paddington. Where did you go so wrong, old friend? Anyways, that's all for now. I don't want to overwhelm you with the lack of paragraph breaks and the overabundance of Links. Ok, I'm sorry about that one. If you don't get that joke, I have more respect for you than I have for myself.

Being For The Benefit of Mr. Cous.

Hello, friend. I don't suppose that you've been pining away for another post on this thing, but since you can't have too much of a good thing, you can probably put up with a pretty hefty amount of a bad thing, too. Am I wrong? I thought I'd take this time to fade out, having nothing really to talk about, but as the post has only just begun and my last post was a long review that you won't want to read, I'd better throw in some filler that you'll read and wish that you hadn't. Yes. On with the filler! I've been following the headlines about the Pope's supposedly "inflamatory" comments, but have been too disgusted to actually read what's going on. I suppose that you might call it irresponsible to not actually follow the details, since you never know when I might have to defend His Holiness or my faith in general against someone who reads the New York Times like most Christians don't read the Bible, but I really don't see this as even being that relevant. The media's jumping on the Pope for saying something politically incorrect. No kidding. Is the Pope Catholic? I'd be more worried if the media actually liked the guy. Honestly, the only thing he could have said that would have pleased the media and political establishment in general is if he said "Um, everyone just do whatever you want and don't worry about the consequences. Jesus was a reallly nice guy and he wouldn't want anyone to make some sort of moral assesment of any actions or ideas or their implications. Also, Islam is peace. While nothing is actually wrong per se, it's very not nice to imply that your religion might be closer to truth than anyone else's." Anyways, as you can see, I'm in no mental state to engage in any kind of intelligent thought right now, and I'm ranting. Come to think of it, I'm not sure what my mental state would have to be in order to make an intelligent post. I've yet to attain it, whatever it is. Sooner or later you have to realize that it's not really going to make a whole lot of difference whether you're hearing that sound from outside your head or if its just some ringing in your ear from too much shouting in the art galleries where Dr. Mournful's finest work is never on display, but where you can find his finer mediocrities without much trouble to the police or anyone else in this town know where I can find a telephone that takes American change? Times change. You can argue that Time is a human construct, but I don't think that it is. Clocks are a human construct, but I'm pretty sure that Time would exist without them, and without calendars on the wall telling you what to do all the time you might actually break down and do what you've wanted to do all along but never had the time because of the worrysome sound of water coming from the ceiling in the room that you'd just repainted-and suddenly we're back to paint and it's time (back to time as well, although we technically can't leave it behind anywhere either way) to wrap this up and wish you a fine evening before it becomes morning and you have to get up and do your chicken dance all day until you can't lay any more eggs and farmer John will come around with his axe a-swingin' and whiskey on his breath. Maybe tommorow won't be the day, though, so maybe we'll have time to have a pint and talk it all over on some evening when we're both free. We'll see.

An Overly Long Review of Bob Dylan's Modern Times

First off, I feel compelled to warn you that this is a Bob Dylan album. If you’ve already given Dylan an honest and open-minded listening and either still can’t get past his oft-maligned voice or simply aren’t fond of his somewhat weird folk rock injected with postmodern imagery, you’re probably not going to like this album. I can’t fault you for having different tastes than my own. That said, I can’t help but think (probably because of the degree to which I personally am fond of Mr. Dylan’s music) that there are some (perhaps many) who haven’t given the guy a chance, and this album is a pretty good opportunity to do that if you’re up to it. The only disclaimer I can offer is that there are at least six or seven (some might put that number closer to 30) versions of Bob Dylan floating around out there on record, and if you’re expecting to hear the guy who sings songs like “Lay Lady, Lay,” “Blowin’ In The Wind,” or “Like A Rolling Stone” the way they sounded in the ‘60s, you’re not going to get it. There, that’s off my chest.

For all the hats he’s worn over the last forty-five years (lately he’s been wearing a Stetson), Dylan’s still at his core a folk singer, and throughout Modern Times he constantly and unabashedly revisits and borrows from the folk and blues canon, seamlessly writing new songs around old lyrics and themes. Backed by the current five-man lineup of his ever-changing touring band, Dylan croaks out blues and croons ballads from behind his guitar and piano, throwing in a few bars of harmonica where needed.
The album starts out with “Thunder on the Mountain,” a nice upbeat blues tune with somewhat typical weird Dylan lyrics that don’t make much sense, but sound cool. With some slick guitar work and a superb rhythm section behind Dylan’s sneering vocals, you’ve got an all-around good album opener.
Next comes “Spirit on the Water,” a somewhat sour love song set to an easy-going jazz standard-sounding piano tune, carried by an upright bass and some airy guitar fills. I guess I’d have to call it a pop song despite its seven-plus-minute length, and also despite the fact that “pop” music like this stopped being mainstream at least forty-five years ago. Not the voice you’d expect to hear crooning out this song, but it works so well you wonder why you didn’t.
“Rollin’ and Tumblin” picks up speed and turns up the guitars again, sounding to me sort of like Dylan's mid-sixties hit “Maggie’s Farm,” if it had been written by John Lee Hooker.
What better way to follow up a heavy blues song than with “When the Deal Goes Down,” a slow waltz that again finds Dylan playing piano, accompanied by a steel guitar and violin.
You could call “Someday Baby” a re-imagining of the blues standard “Worried Life Blues” to some extent, with the rhythm section laying down a nice groove into which Dylan weaves his vocals. One of the highlights of the album to be sure, catch it on the latest iTunes + iPod commercial on telly if you watch that sort of thing.
“Workingman’s Blues #2” is, unless I’m mistaken, Dylan’s most political song in at least the last decade, or at least the first verse is, so I’m actually quite surprised at how much I like it. It might be because after lamenting the fact that “the buying power of the Proletariat’s going down” early on, the tune pretty much turns out to be more of a blue-collar love song. Also, if you’re an absolute geek like me, you might notice how much the instruments here sound like much earlier Dylan. To me it sounds like Dylan in his mid sixties has transported himself back to the mid sixties to sit in on a song recorded one take after “Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues,” but I can tell that I’m losing you. Seems to me that everybody’s got something that they’re a geek about, this is mine. Sorry.
“Beyond The Horizon” is another jazzy love song, or so it seems to be. To me, it seems that perhaps he’s referring to a place/state of life that’s impossible to attain, and singing whistfully about happiness that’s never to be. Give it a listen, either way it sounds pretty nice.
Hmm… I’m not sure what to say about “Nettie Moore.” The lyrics to the verses make less and less sense as the song progresses, but the beautiful chorus and the sadness conveyed throughout make it one of my favorite songs on the album. Good stuff.
Things pick up again with Dylan’s cover/re-write of the old blues song “The Levee’s Gonna Break,” recorded and performed in various different versions over the years, the most famous that I can think of being by Led Zeppelin. Dylan and the band manage to be upbeat yet subdued here, giving the song a much more chilled vibe than its otherwise urgent lyrics suggest.
Ten songs into the album and you’ve reached the closer, “Ain’t Talkin’.” As is not uncommon with Dylan albums, the final track here is slow and acoustic, and it could be one of the eeriest sounding songs in Dylan’s extensive catalog. While most of Dylan’s songs don’t seem to be directly about himself, this tune somewhat suggests that sadly the singer/songwriter is no closer to finding the answers to life’s questions than he ever was. The tune’s final seconds are to me one of the more musically brilliant moments on the whole album, when, after dangling between a few minor chords for the whole song, the band slowly cycles into a major chord so perfectly that you almost forget how gloomy a song it actually was. It’s also got some pretty cool poetic biblical references in there, too.
Anyhoo, it’s a good CD and if you’re up for it I’d highly recommend it. Of course, as I said I’m a huge Dylan fan, so take anything I say about his music with a grain of salt. Also very much worth picking up are the sophomore releases (both from early summer) by Keane and The Zutons. Keane kicks up their weirdness in the production department a notch, and The Zutons Turn up the guitars and kick up the tempo bit, but both albums are carried by strong songwriting and production, and are further evidence that good pop music can only come from England. Sorry for an even-more-self-indulgent-than-usual post, I’ll try to have something more normal up here soon. Have a great week.

"I don't get no respect."

So I was watching the big Notre Dame/U. of M. game on Saturday, which was enjoyable. I'm not the world's biggest sports fan (I don't have time, what with working out the logistics of 50WD and all), but I do like football, and it was more than a little gratifying to see #11 Michigan win their road opener by wiping the floor with an old rival, who happen to also be the no. 2-ranked team in the country. Ah, Autumn. Anyways, watching the game I was struck once again by the striking resemblance that Fighting Irish head coach Charlie Weis bears to the late comic Rodney Dangerfield. Sure, Weis is a little fatter and a little less dead, but I have to think that I'm not the only one who noticed this. I didn't watch the post-game press conference, but I like to imagine that Weis' comments went something like this:

“So I went down to the stadium today, stop me if you’ve heard this one. I was havin’ the time of my life until I realized I was supposed to be coaching a football game, instead of watchin’ the cheahleadahs. This football team I got, they don’t give me no respect. I tell ‘em to run the football, they run 11 yahds in the whole game! I tell ‘em to pass the football, they pass it right to the other team! I shoulda been coaching the cheahleadahs, they were doin’ what I wanted ‘em to do!”

"When you're in your little room..."

Greetings, friend(s). It's been a decent-ish few weeks behind the scenes at the Republic of D.Cous., various things going on.
I spent Labor Day weekend road tripping to and from a wedding in Iowa, which was actually quite fun. I was expecting the trip to be a drag and the wedding to be fun, but they both turned out to be a great time. I rode out with people who I mostly didn't know very well, and we had a great time getting better acquainted and playing mad libs and making more inside jokes about other parts of the trip than any group of people probably should.
Bob Dylan's new album Modern Times came out on August 29. If you're reading this you probably have some idea of how big a Bob Dylan fan I am (much to your chagrin, perhaps), so watch for my review of the disk in a day or two. I won't blame you if you decide to skip it, but I thought I'd try my hand at writing a review, and it's just not finished yet.
Yesterday was my 22nd birthday, which I'm pretty sure makes me officially old. I had a nice dinner celebration with a few friends, and I'm having dinner tomorrow with my family, so I guess I get bonus points for spreading my birthday out accross three days. It's been a good life so far, many thanks to all of you who have helped to make it so (some of you have probably done so completely by accident).
I went to Cedar Point for the first time in at least a decade over the past weekend, thanks to an invitation from friends. There are a fair amount of new rides since I was last there, and at the time I was too scared to enjoy the few rides I did try (I was something of a nervous kid, as I'm sure you can imagine). This time around was much more fun than my few remaining shards of memory from the first trip, but I have to admit that I don't think I'll be going back any time soon. I'm not sorry I went, don't get me wrong. I enjoyed myself, though it's not the sort of thing I would've done of my own volition. The problem really was that I got pretty sick from the roller coasters and didn't end up going on all that many. More evidence that I'm miserably old, I guess.

"Diamonds are forever, Mr. Bond."

So I picked up a Dr. Pepper for the first time in a while yesterday, and discovered that they've once again updated their packaging. The new can advertises that "Dr. Pepper" was established in 1885, when it was most likely peddled by snake oil salesmen as "Doctor Pepper's Marvelous Cure-All Elixir," and could supposedly cure rheumatism, typhoid, influenza, and could even be used for the treatment of various Indian attack-related injuries. I can see the ads now: "Out here on the frontier, I perty much only need three thangs: ma gun, ma Bible, and a six-pack 'a Doctor Pepper's Marvelous Cure-All Elixir!" (notactuallyproventocureanything
sideeffectsincludelossofsleepnauseaandinsomecasestoothdecay). The new can design also advertises that Dr. Pepper is made from "an authentic blend of 23 flavors." Apparently somebody recently told the Dr. Pepper people about the existence of Mr. Pibb, Dr. Thunder, and various other off-brand alternatives, and they're desperately attempting to prove their product's superiority. "Oh, hello Mr. Pibb. I notice that you've been making a pop that's very similar to mine. You probably think you're pretty clever, but what you don't realize is that mine is an authentic blend of 23 flavors! How many flavors are in your little soda? One? Two? Yeah, that's what I thought. Clear out the substitutes, there's a new Sheriff in town. A sheriff with an AUTHENTIC BLEND OF 23 FLAVORS, biatches!" Ok, sorry. I have no idea why I'm writing about this.

Moving along, I'm thinking of putting a link onto the blog that will let you donate money to me, since a lot of other sites seem to do this. Of course, all you get for donating to them is the satisfaction of paying for a site that you'd previously been viewing for free, and maybe sometimes they'll throw in a "bonus membership street team" phrase, where they'll give you a t-shirt (but only if you donate more than $25 or something like that), and you get to feel outright smug about donating to the site. It's like the Good Book says, hombres: "Why waste your money on what is not bread? Your wages on what fails to satisfy?" For donating to The People's Republic of D.Cous., you won't just get a t-shirt and a smug look on your face every time you view my blog. You'll get no t-shirt whatsoever, and the look on your face won't be smug, no. It'll be outright distorted by a twisted maniacal grin, knowing that you have helped me get one step closer to 50% world domination. Total domination might be in the works, we'll see, but first I need some money. My plan is so simple that it's absolutely brilliant, and I'm only telling you about it because I need the money to implement it, and because you read my blog I trust you. I'm going to create a shoe. A pair of shoes, really. I haven't run the computer simulations yet, but it might have to be a very big pair of shoes to get the desired effect. It might even have to be several small pairs of shoes. As I said, due to research funding limitations, this plan for 50% world domination is still very much in the planning phase. Where was I? Oh yes. Shoes. Intrigued yet? Yes, I'm aware of the many questions that must be racing through your capable mind right now. How is D.Cous. going to achieve 50% world domination by making shoes? Does this have anything to do with Dr. Pepper, and if so, what? Is anybody watching me right now, or is it ok to pick my nose? I'll answer those questions in reverse order, for dramatic effect: Thirdly, yes. You're always being watched, and no, you probably shouldn't pick your nose in front of them. It's rude. Secondly, no. The bit about Dr. Pepper was just to get the casual Republic of D.Cous. reader to stop reading. The frontier was settled, the railroads were built, and the Indians were relegated to reservations and casinos by 1885, everyone knows this. No one must know about what I have to say. No one except me, and you, and of course Reginald. I'll be the brains of the operation, obviously, you'll be the financier, and Reginald will (as always) be the silent partner. Now then, to your first question. As I said before, I'm going to make a pair of shoes, or perhaps several. Some field testing and computer modeling will need to be done to determine the size and quantity of the shoes, once the funds start rolling in. Now comes the important part, the part where the shoes give us the power to rule 50% of the world: They will be made out of chocolate. Shoes made out of chocolate, my friend! Half the world is already within our grasp, we just have to get our hands on it before the Wal Mart people do. But I'm getting ahead of myself, and perhaps you're starting to lose interest before I get to the really important part. Combining the powers of shoes and chocolate is still only 2/3 of my plan for 50% world domination (50WD), and 2/3 of 50% is only... let's see... carry the two... anyways, it's less than 50%. Yes friends, there is one more element to 50WD (not to be mistaken for WD40, which was actually a miserable failure as a world-domination plan, but turned out to be a pretty good lubricant), without which the first two elements combined are a mere novelty item: Diamonds. That’s right, diamonds. A lot of diamonds. Enough diamonds, in fact, to coat a pair of chocolate shoes in a sparkly glow of unstoppable power. The power to control any and all women on earth, Mr. Bond. Faced with that “super-cute” pair of diamond-coated chocolate shoes, women’s brains the world over shall be like so much putty in the hands of a capable sculptor (not that I can sculpt per se, it’s just a simile). There may be a few minor brain explosions as some women try to figure out whether to eat or wear the shoes, and if they wear them what outfit will they go with, but I think most women will stop before then, stopped in their tracks by the mere concept of a diamond-coated chocolate shoe. They’ll be so blown away it may even take them a while to notice the second shoe. We’ll have complete control over every woman on earth within minutes, which is, if my math is correct, roughly 50% of the world’s population. Of course, once you control all the women, you’ve pretty much already got control of the other half of the world, but I’m getting ahead of myself again. The key elements here are money, money, and money. “Great,” you’re thinking. “I already KNEW I could win women over with money.” That’s as may be, my friend, but I put it to you that Plan 50WD will win over every woman in the world far cheaper than any alternative heretofore considered.
The bottom line is “give money to the People’s Republic of D.Cous.” You won’t be directly helping refugees or orphans or even starving beat poets (I personally guarantee that no money donated to the Republic shall ever go to starving beat poets). Instead, you’ll be helping me achieve world domination, in exchange for loosely defined “gratitude” at some undetermined future date (and that’s a promise you can take right to the bank), after I’ve established myself as supreme leader of earth, and we’ve blasted at least one other planet out of the solar system just for the heck of it. Come on, you know you want to.

Of Rugged Rocks and Ragged Rascals...

Ah, rainy days. The perfect time for relaxing on the couch with a cup o' tea (or coffee, I'm an equal opportunity enjoyer of hot beverages, except for that no-good hot cider nonsense) and that Jules Verne book I didn't quite finish on vacation (icthiological terms are tricky in french, by the way). That's not actually what I'm doing on this fine rainy day, but it still would've been a good way to spend it, all other things being equal. I also enjoy driving in the rain, something I did actually get to do, running an errand or two. It's funny the things you miss when you don't have them. Last summer I spent a month in France travelling mostly by train and on foot, having a fantastic time, and by the end of the trip I missed driving. I'm quite happy to have finished my studies at Hillsdale, but aside from missing friends and professors and such (which I'd expected), I've begun to miss the odd little things. I miss having free, unlimited access to JSTOR (an online archive of academic journal articles) and the Oxford English Dictionary, and a super-cheap subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Perusing the internet during lunch the other day I stumbled accross a nearly 50-page economics paper, and was sorry not to have the time to read it. A few months ago I would've had the paper in hand with a deadline to write a paper, give a presentation, or take a test on it (none of which I enjoy), fully ready to stay up late into night with a cup of coffee (sorry, no tea for late-night studying) and my trusty notebook and highlighter, listening to Miles Davis on my headphones and doodling in the notebook while my mind tried to wrap itself around the theory. Don't get me wrong. I loved France, and I want to go back some day. I also loved college, I just don't want to go back. I finished. I took my four years of classes, made my mistakes, did a few things right (but not too many, gotta keep expectations low), and graduated. In fact, before my diploma arrived in the mail a few weeks ago I was irrationally paranoid that I would receive a call from the Hillsdale College registrar, telling me that I would have to come back to take one more PE class, or another semester of English. I liked English, but I got slightly disilusioned by my freshman litterature class when it occured to me that at least half of the works we were reading weren't originally written in English. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be reading Virgil, Dante, Cervantes, and Augustine (quite the opposite, really), I'm just saying that putting them in a class called "English" is a bit of a misnomer. Sure, we read some Shakespeare, Chaucer, and Coleridge as well, so there were smatterings of English litterature in the English class, but still. Ok, I don't even know why I'm ranting about that. It's not even something I feel at all strongly about. I'm sorry world. They're called "English" classes because they're taught by members of the English department, or perhaps because they expect your papers to be in something at least recognizeable as the English language (by the way, I don't see myself missing writing typed, double-spaced, one inch-margined expository prose any time soon). Well, there you have it. Another post devoid of paragraph breaks or discernable direction. I'm sorry, but not so sorry that I won't do it again, as I am likely to do. Have a good rainy day if it continues to rain, and a good sunny day if it doesn't.

No alarms and no surprises, please.

Ah, back to the helm of The Republic. I must say, it's been a very dreadfully long time, and I wouldn't blame you at all if you're not reading this, as there's a very good chance that you're not. What have I been doing with myself during my hiatus, you might ask? Well, don't bother, it's not really anything to write home about. I did go on vacation with my family and my girlfriend and her family (for those of you keeping track, that adds up to 1,023 people), up on one of Michigan's six lakes named "Long Lake." 'Twas a wonderfully relaxing time, and quite a bit cooler than this 95-degree madness that I've come back to, and I kept my longstanding vacation tradition of sitting on the beach reading for hours, taking occasional breaks to eat, sleep, and mingle with friends and relatives.

Hey hey, a paragraph break! I haven't been keeping track, but that's probably only the sixth or seventh in The Republic's long and proud history. Anyways, let's have a little talk about Japanese Beetles. Hmm... On second thought, let's not capitalize the name, it's only an insect. What do we know about Japanese beetles? Well, there's the name for starters: Japanese is an adjective, meaning "Of or pertaining to Japan," according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED for short), so clearly the name indicates that the insect in question is or at some point was beleived to be of Japanese origin. Beetle is of course a noun, for which the OED gives this handy little definition:

"The class name for insects of the coleopterous order, having the upper pair of wings converted into hard sheaths or wing-cases (elytra) that close over the back, and protect the lower or true wings, which most species are able to use in flight."

I'm terribly sorry, but blogger is apparently refusing me the right to indent lengthy quotations, so that's the best I'm going to do. Let the record show, however, that those are not paragraph breaks per se, and should not be counted as such. Anyways, where was I? Beetles. Yes. When you combine the words "Japanese" and "beetle," you get a new definition, one which unfortunately cannot be found on the austere pages of that definitive record of the English Language, but which is nonetheless useful: The Japanese beetle is the most disgusting animal known to man. Anyways, Reens (My sister and landlady) and I returned from our vacation to discover that our neighborhood was infested with the aforementioned green insectoid monstrocities, who were making themselves as comfortable as pigs in the mud devouring my sister's much-cherished garden. Hundreds of them. Thousands, even. A small amount of research on Reenie's part revealed that the two main ways to dispose of the little buggers are to either pick them off by hand, or else purchase and trap them with a pheromone trap. Being more than a bit vexed with the beetles, and in no mood to pick them off the bushes like so many blueberries, it was the second option which my sister took, and hence asked me to set up the contraption. It's a simple device, really: You suspend a tablet of synthesized beetle sex attractants mixed with some sort of poison (it probably takes a pretty weird guy with a PhD to think of this) over a plastic bag with a funnel in the top, and within a few seconds the horny little bastards fly to it from all corners of the yard, and fall stunned into the bag, where they writhe around in a pile having some disgusting bug orgy/feeding frenzy until the smell of dead bugs begins to counterract the pheromones and the bag has to be replaced for more bugs to show up. Grossed out? I know I am, dear reader (don't you hate it when people patronize you in print by calling you "dear reader?" I know I do), but I'm afraid we're not yet finished with this gruesome tale. Remember how I said said the bugs are writhing around in a pile in the bottom of the bag? That's right, the majority of them are not yet dead. Just for a second, imagine yourself holding a tied-off plastic bag containing roughly a pound of writhing beatles. If you're starting to get phantom itches from imagining that those bugs are now crawling all over yourself, welcome to my world. Feel free to leave my world any time you like and go back to your happy place, assuming that there are no Japanese beetles there. What are we supposed to do with this 1 pound bag of garden pests? We notice that there are tiny holes in the bag (as if the bugs are supposed to be able to breathe or something, I don't know. Ask the guys who make beetle sex attractants for a living, not me). So, Reens comes up with the idea of drowning the little buggers in soap water, which, she says, is rumored to be lethal to them. Figures that something that disgusting would have a fatal allergy to soap, I guess, but being more than a little tired of the sight of the beetles, I take the idea step further and suggest that we put a little bleach into the solution, just for good measure. So, we fill a bucket with goodly amounts of soap, bleach, and just a touch of water (for flavor), and dip the bag-o-bugs into it. So far so good, but after a few minutes we decided to check up on the bugs, to make sure that they had truly all died (you must understand, a bag of beetles does in fact float, so it was never completely submerged). Reenie grabbed the still-dry top of the bag and slowly lifted it up out of the water a few inches, which is when a dark, rust-colored liquid began pouring out of the aforementioned holes in the bag, and clouding the water in the bucket below. Unbelievably disgusting. Methinks that perhaps the bleach and soap don't just kill the bugs, they sort of chemically break them down to a brown pulp. I didn't think I'd be able to eat for days, but somehow I managed to have some dinner, although I didn't want to go near anything crunchy.

Anyways, that's pretty much all I can stand to write for now, the memory's still too vivid, especially considering that every day since then I've gotten home from work to see a fresh new pound of bugs in the bottom of the bag I put up the previous evening. I don't ever want to go to hell, because it's probably where I sent all those bugs, and they're probably pissed. I mean, here they thought they were gonna get free love like it's 1967 all over again, and instead ended up being disintegrated by bleach. Serves 'em right. More posts to come soonish, although I can never make any guarantees as to the quality.

Procrastination on tap 7 days a week

Well well well... I've neglected posting for so long that I'm almost afraid to start doing so again, but a strong sense of duty compels me to splatter my mind's useless meanderings accross the vast and vacant void of cyberspace, if only to keep them out of my everyday conversation. Since my last post I've gone into debt, purchased a car, moved out of the family homestead, and sold every dream I ever had for the price of a bargain rack shirt that no one except you likes, and which doesn't even fit you all that well. Ok, it sort of half fits you, since one sleeve is just the right length and the other is four inches too long, and since both of your arms are same length (roughly, or so I assume), it's a pretty safe bet that it's been on the bargain rack for quite some time, and not without good reason. But what the hell, buy it and learn to sew. I myself barely know where to pick up the pieces and start over, it's been so long. I suppose I could begin again by telling you that (strictly between you and I, you understand) I'm rather unsure if anyone is particularly pleased with what I'm doing with myself these days. I just tell them I'm back to work in the ol' croquet mallet factory for 22 and a half cents an hour, and they roll my eyes and tell me that I'd better get back to school if I don't want to end up like Fat Elvis, still trying to sqeeze my ever-enlarging posterior into the same ol' sequins, fresh from the dry-cleaners and getting a little threadbare, just to come out for one more encore of "Heartbreak Hotel," which is beginning to sound more and more like the story of the train wreck I used to call my life. I usually shrug it off and tell them that I don't plan on being the guy working in the croquet mallet factory forever, no sir. One day I'll be the guy playing croquet and enjoying a few brewskis in the back yard, while my trophy wife tries to settle down our 2.5 kids long enough to take their picture with the camera that costs too much and she doesn't know how to use it anyways and I tried to explain that to her but she insisted and sometimes you have to make those little compromises just to keep the wifey-poo happy. Anyways, that's what I tell them but I sort of embelish the details, just to give the impression that I've got it all thought out, only between you and I, I haven't. It'll all work out somehow though, you'll see. Heaven knows how, but life doesn't often disappoint me, and it's not just because I have low expectations, although I sort of do. Well, that's only half true. I won't get into it right now, because the details would bore you, and we both know how little you enjoy being bored after a long day of doing whatever it is that you do all day. Either way, I'll put in a good word for you with the man upstairs if I see him, and we'll let the world solve it's own problems for the most part, except that someone ought to give Frida Kahlo a pair of tweezers and I think it should be you, only because I don't know her all that well and it might be awkward if I did.

"The benches were stained with tears and perspiration..."

Hey Reginald, guess what? Yup, you guessed it: I'm still alive. I'm also out of college. Weird. To provide the remaining requisite "loch ness monster sighting" evidence, I present the following photograph: If you look closely you'll see that it looks like I'm walking somewhat oddly and might be about to fall down the stairs. I'm actually not, or at least I don't think I am-I don't remember all that much of the actual walking down the stage part of the story. It wasn't the most interesting part, I probably skimmed through it like the musical numbers in movie musicals that don't have interesting musical numbers. The ceremony lasted three hours or so, and I spent most of the speech reading the names and majors of the rest of my graduating class, but it wasn't devoid of interestingness. For example, the guy at the far right in that picture (Dr. Mark Kalthof, I hope I spelled that correctly), who announced our names and degrees as we walked accross the stage to receive our fake diplomas (they say the real ones, like every check that was never received, are in the mail), actually pronounced my name correctly. On a loud speaker. With my family and friends there as witnesses. I was shocked. Maybe stunned. I don't know if I kept walking right away or not, but I suppose I did. I didn't actually notice the applause that I got at the time, but as I was shaking the president's hand he said "You've got a fan club out there," so I expect that I got a noticeable amount. Apparently I had a lot of people pulling for me out there, so thanks. Anyways, that's all for now. Stay tuned for grizzly tales of adapting to life after college for D.Cous.

A fine, fine mess...

Greetings one and one. I'm sorry for scaring everyone except Reens away from reading the blog, I hope you all didn't use to congregate in one place to read it, because if you did then you stood her up at the last get-together, and that's not nice. Today is the day, world. I stayed up all night last night in the snack bar and finished my last final this morning. I don't expect that I failed it, so I guess that means... I'm going to graduate. I've had the cap and gown sitting on my desk for a month and a half now, still in the packaging, afraid to open it up for fear of jinxing my chances. I'm not even superstitious. I guess I'm just having trouble believeing that I've actually been here for so long, or that I'm actually going to leave. It often felt like I'd been here a long time and I wanted to be done, but now I actually have and I will. It's crazy. For all that, it's been an amazing few years here, and I'm extremely grateful to have been able to do it. I've gotten to know some great people and taken some great courses and had a few mishaps and meaderings here and there to make it interesting. I'm still worried about what's next or how I'm going to survive in the real world, since I'm convinced that it's going to be quite different than my last few years have been, but maybe that's why I'm so excited. I get to change my entire day-to-day, hour-to-hour pattern of life, and I get to/have to learn how to do that by trial and error. I'm not guessing that it'll be easy, I know a lot of people who have long-since finished college, and I don't remember any of them telling me that it was by any stretch of the imagination the hardest part of their life. Maybe it was for some of them, but all the same life's not known for being easy. It is known for being interesting, though. I know that mine has been. I'm not saying that if I wrote an autobiography anyone would want to read it, just that it's been interesting for me. Then again, I'm writing a blog about my life that usually gets read by one or two people. I guess I'm better at guilting people into stuff than I thought. As usual, I'm babbling. That's all for now, I'm looking forward to seeing whoever makes it out for my commencement on Saturday. The weather outlook's not great, so unfortunately it'll probably be down on the basketball court instead of outside, much to my chagrin. So to sum up: Sorry, thank you, basketball court. Good day.

"See the world in green and blue..."

Hey Reginald! Sorry I haven't written in a long time, I guess I've been busy or something like that. My coughing fits are steadily becoming less frequent and my sinuses are clearing up enough for me to smell the blossoms all over campus, so everything's going fine on that end. I received my first final via e-mail yesterday, so I'll be working on that this afternoon. Then I have to go over some Beaumarchais (Le Mariage de Figaro, upon which is based the italian opera of the same name) and various other French readings from the rest of the semester, but really the stress level's pretty low at the moment. I mean, nothing is due until Monday, and that seems like such a long ways off.
Hey, a paragraph break! I'll probably be hitting the snack bar tonight, which means I'll have to contend with the lady who works there, which (believe me) is no small feat. I don't want to be mean, but this woman may very well be pure evil. Here's a candid photo of her, taken stealthily by one J. Walker (This image is not for the faint of heart): Honestly, she has that expression on her face all the time, like when she's asked politely to make food for money, which requires her to get up from watching television. I'm not kidding, she's just rude to everyone who goes up there, and most people aren't the least bit rude to her. Also, she charges money for ice water, which she already only serves when you buy food. Seriously. I should be safe though, I'll be wearing a cross.
I ran into Mrs. Abel, my tennis instructor from last semester, in lunch today. Considering that the class had two sections of 20-30 people that semester alone, I'm always suprised when I run into her and she remembers me. She wished me well with graduation and everything and we chatted for a few minutes, she's very nice.
I was advised today in random conversation (not with Mrs. Abel) to drink while studying, and then drink right before taking the final, and apparently this will actually improve my chances of getting an A. Yeah, ok buddy. Whatever works for you. I think I'll adhere to more traditional study methods, since they've served me pretty well for the most part during the past few years.
Anyhoo, I'm gonna drag the lappy up the hill and try to find a decent spot outside with some wireless internet action going on, then crack open the books while researching and listening to music on the lappy. Yeah, sometimes it's tough to be me. Try not to feel too sorry for me. Have a wonderful day, Reginald.

"I have to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time..."

Hey all, another short post here for now. Thanks a lot for the prayers and well-wishing and everything else, my fever finally quit me sometime yesterday afternoon, and while my other symptoms are still hanging around, it's a remarkable relief to feel somewhat human again. After Mama of all people called and told me to go see a doctor I drove accross campus to the student health service. The nurse there was a nice lady named Maureen Cousino (no relation), and after a few general questions about my symptoms and everything else she showed the doctor in. It wasn't a long visit, he didn't seem too phazed by anything I told him (neither was I, I just didn't like having it), and asked a few of the standard "where are you from/what are you studying" questions. Nice guy. He gave me a prescription for some antibiotics, wished me luck with graduation and everything else, and took off. "You almost made it the whole four years without coming here" said Ms. Cousino sympathetically, as she gave me a small bottle of pills and showed me the door. "Yeah," I said. "I tried."

Influenza: Day V

Sheesh, you'd think it would take me less time to get over this thing. The last few days are all sort of a blur of lying under a blanket shivering, then suddenly sweating and taking off the blanket, then shivering again and putting the blanket back on, with the occaisional coughing fit thrown in for good measure. Every time I fall asleep I keep expecting to wake up feeling somewhat better, or at least rested, but so far that's turned out to be disappointingly untrue. So yeah, I feel selfish asking for prayers for myself, but I really need to get over this, with the semester drawing rapidly to a close, being sick is about the worst possible thing to happen. I hope you are all doing well, thanks a lot for everything.

A Public Service Announcement:

Just to clear up any possible misconceptions, the quasi-dedicated staff of The People's Republic of D.Cous. does not approve of the flu. Under no circumstances do we encourage contact or experimentation of any kind with the flu. Readers of our publication are advised to avoid the flu at all costs, because it may be harmful to your health. We also feel obliged to dispel any fears that reading our blog will result in contraction of the flu. To the best of our knowledge, there is no correlation between readership of this blog and contraction of the flu. The fact that our entire staff has been infected (quite by accident, we assure you) has been attributed (accurately, we feel) to conicidence. Thank you, and have a pleasant week.

Coffee From Above

So I was meandering through one of the classroom buildings just now, feeling more than a little spacy and tired, when I turned a corner and there, in the hallway, was the most beautiful sight I've ever seen: It was a table with a white tablecloth, a glass bowl full of ice, a few bottles of water, a pitcher of cream, some sugar packets, and... coffee. Crackbucks coffee, nonetheless. I swear I heard a choir somewhere, just holding a dominant chord in various forms, climbing to the very top, nay, above the top of the human vocal capacity... I looked around, but the entire floor of the building was empty. Deserted. I looked back at the table, wondering at what point the ethereal choir would have to stop to take a breath. After pondering the situation I found myself in for a few microseconds, I reached the conclusion that any reasonable person would: God wanted me to have this coffee. Not being one to refuse such an obvious example of divine providence, I poured myself a cup, put in a little sugar (not too much), put in some half-n-half, and drank. The choir resolved to tonic and faded to silence. Beautiful silence. Caffeinated silence. Within a minute or two, the first cup was gone. I looked, half-surprised to find that the table was still there. I poured myself a second cup, and walked slowly away, thanking heaven for once again providing for me from its merciful bounty.

Whatcha gonna do about it?

Hello Reginald. I was just sitting here minding my own business the other day when someone walked up to me and said “Hey, what’s the difference between you and a Norwegian kayak maker?” “What?” I asked, somewhat annoyed by the direction he was taking the conversation which ten seconds earlier had not existed. “The kayak maker has a freakin’ job!” He said, and then walked away playing his panpipe and humming rhymes about the coming end of Life As We Know It (LAWKI), Northwestern Canada’s premier television game show in which the contestants have to distinguish between questions asked in nonsense syllables and those asked in the Inuit language. Who cares? I’ll bet the Inuit people do, having their language made fun of like a circus clown on a tiny bicycle falling off of a cliff and onto the next topic of conversation: Petroleum. Just kidding, I sure as shoe polish don’t want to talk about petroleum. I recently discovered that Macadamia nuts coated in chocolate taste delicious. I’d never had any before this week that weren’t buried deep within cookies of the same name, and those weren’t terrible, but I’d have to say that they were better in chocolate. Yes indeed, if you remember one thing which I tell you it should be that things are as they were when they weren’t as yet included in the current order of things that are presently but didn’t used to be. See what I mean? That’s what that nay-sayer with the panpipe will never understand when he’s driving through the sleet in his borrowed Escalade pretending to be somebody’s best friend’s lawyer suing the pants off some poor restaurateur who happened to serve tea at one hundred degrees Celsius the way it ought to be served, Fuzzy Math (FM) notwithstanding. So I was thinking about the Mayfair the other day, not that I’ve ever seen a Mayfair or know exactly what it is, but I’ll bet that it’s pretty nice, because the word has a pleasant ring to it. Anyways, for the sake of LAWKI (and many other acronyms I’m sure), I’d better get to reading some Beaumarchais and studying for a test of my fortitude, which could come and go as it wishes, at any given time. I wish you the best of luck, Reginald. I’m sure that it shall all right itself in an odd sort of way, as it always does this time of year, so hold onto your hat and hope for the best and nothing bad will hurt more than a bee sting in the eye, which I believe would hurt a great deal. Best to avoid the bee’s nest altogether and not to wantonly throw rocks.

Remember me?

Hello blog fans of the earth. Miss me? I apologize for my lack of consistency in posting on this thing, I really don't have much of an excuse. Can't complain about life lately, I went home for the Easter Triduum, which was great. School plods on as usual, which isn't so great, although I'm still enjoying it for the most part. Only four weeks to go, which is still longer than most college students have. For some reason my fine institution of higher education (IHE) decided that we'd rather have a really long Christmas break than a decently long summer. Not a great idea as far as I'm concerned, but who asked me? Four weeks to go... I'm really pretty excited about the whole thing, although the uncertainty of what's to follow still bothers me at times. I'm not even sure where I'm going to live after packing my car full of my belongings and heading for home. The good news is that I have a few options to choose between (assuming that none fall through), so life could be a heck of a lot worse. On the other hand, the decision would be quite a lot easier if I had fewer options. We’ll see. I’m sure it’ll work out alright. That’s all for now, I’ll try to have some thing more interesting to write soon. Have a good week!

What Have We Learned?

Courtesy of the Wall Street Journal's "Best Of The Web Today" feature, here's a funny/sad little anecdote for the day: Apparently an Orlando-area public school thought that it would be a good idea to teach kids about the Holocaust by making some arbitrarily-selected group of them wear yellow stars, and restricting them from using the drinking fountains. Brilliant, or rather it would be brilliant, if that was the way that children actually learned these things. When asked about the little social experiment, one boy simply said "the only thing I found out today is I don't want to be Jewish." Way to go, guys. Way to go. Personally, I think that it's far less important to empathize with the people who were mistreated than it is to learn that there was no reason to mistreat them, or for them to be mistreated. It seems that in this case you can either teach kids that it's wrong to mistreat Jews, or you can just teach kids that it sucks to be Jewish, because Jews are victims. Anyways, have a good weekend. More wonderments to come in due time.

There once was a student in college...

...And one day he lept o'er a tall hedge. Sorry kids, I've no chance of coming up with the rest of that limerick. Hm. I suppose it's not a limerick, then. Oh well. So, how are you? I don't honestly know if you're still there, and if you're not I can't exactly blame you. I really ought to work on finding my niche in the blog world. You know, where I offer something that other people don't offer, or at a better price. Unfortunately, everyone and their uncle does pretty much the same thing I do with my blog with their own. On the other hand, girl pants: I can offer no explanation for this image, suffice to say that if anyone's reading this they probably know who's lower half is squeezed into those Levis. Certain references to the film "This is Spinal Tap" spring to mind. In other news, the wonderful bounty of the internet has yeilded hilarity yet again. Far to the Southwest, in the land of bratwurst and beer, there is a place called the Milwalkee Institute of Art and Design. I know what you're thinking, "what's so funny about art school?" "What," you ask? It's art school, for crying out loud! They teach you how to make crap, and then describe it as the deepest thing ever created by man. Ok, to be fair, I've never been to such an institution, and I have the artistic ability of a dead pufferfish, but I'm about to argue that the students at MIAD are no Picassos themselves. Anyhoo, at this fine art school, they have a program of study called "Time-Based Media," which in non-art speak might be called "Film." Paydirt. PAY DIRT. Ok, I can't really explain what I'm about to link to, I'm just going to give you the link, and let the chef d'oeuvre speak for itself: click here. Well, that's all for now, friend. I do hope that everything is well in your part of the world. Stay out of girl pants, unless of course you're a girl, in which case I can't help but recommend them. TTFN! Ta ta for now!