28.4.04

And That, as they say in the Biz, is That. Finals are completely done for, and I'm actually considering working 36 hours in three days every week at the workstudy job I held all semester. If it weren't the easiest job I've ever had (and believe me, I've had some pretty ridiculously easy jobs) with plenty of opportunity to do nothing for hours on end, I probably wouldn't bee so hot to get back to it. But us True Warriors have ways of keeping our attention occupied, or just letting it flag and staring at the wall until time melts away. I could get some serious reading done this summer, and get paid for it...

Damn, what am I doing sitting here?

22.4.04

Holy Hell. Today has been absolute insanity. I awoke from my usual 1230-1430 nap (yeah, there's nothing usual about it) to terrible visions of a future dominated by half-mad mutant babies and green aliens who wear contact lenses to hide their purple pupils. "You actually WANT to be a child of these Earth-creatures? You must be CRAZY!"

Seriously, it's almost 1 O'clock in the morning (0100 by our standards), and half the people in this world that I give a damn about are still up and signed on to their AIM accounts. There's a part of this scene that is unnatural, and it's either the fact that such a large segment of the Sane human population is still awake and at their computers, or the fact that I'm still awake after a semester of preaching the benefits of getting plenty of Rest. This Squad Leader will have a lot of "'splainin" to do come next fall...
There is no other explanation.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force is written by drunks.
Directed by drunks.
Animated by drunks.
Produced by drunks.
There is no other segment of the population that would find this kind of gibberish amusing at 0034 hours. I guess that means I'm ready for bed. Hooray for finals! Woo!

17.4.04

Jeezus, I've been surrounded by swine and wildebeasts of all sizes. Politicians of every stripe are beginning to visit Anytown with disturbing frequency, and for less-than-alturistic reasons. The torrent of abject stupidity seems particularly thick today, and it's impossible not to believe that some malicious cosmic force is behind it.

On the upside, I found another Stephenson book the other day, and although it is short it is sweet. Read "The Big U" for entertainment. Later on I plan to collapse in a steamy pile on the leather lay-z-boy and let the cats chase themselves stupid while hopped up on canned processed meats.

15.4.04

From a Salon.com article about the Israel/Palestine conflict -

"But both the Palestinians and the Israelis I talked to agreed that there was one party who could break the deadlock: the United States. 'It's like two people fighting,' Yehuda said. 'You need someone from the outside to step in and break it up.' Every Palestinian I talked to agreed -- but most had become so despairing of a reasonable U.S. policy that they didn't even bother to bring it up. Clearly they'd grown weary of grasping at vain hopes. Mention of Bush brought a bitter grimace, sometimes the dark smile of a gunfighter. This man is detested."

I really wish there was a way to convey the utter contempt that the rest of the world holds Bush in to those who would have him elected. Maybe a national field trip to the middle east? Goddammit! How are the shitheads and the weasels allowed to get so far ahead in life? Is it really just cash? How sick.

14.4.04

It just becomes painful.

The End of Times Approaches! Finals are occuring almost daily here at U. of A. I prepare for a summer of Work while my fellow mids who are lucky enough to be on scholarship take a three-week vacation to the fleet called Cortramid. But I'm not jealous, goodness no, for I will be in North Carolina and Colorado and massive debt for moths to come.

Smile!

8.4.04

Well, that was fun.

We were ambushed this morning by our 3rd class mids in sweat tops and cammie bottoms and roped into a PT session the likes of which we hadn't seen since orientation. I was doing fine until we had to stand at attention inside a hot (to me) gym, then my gut rebelled against the unexpected pressure and I heaved into one of the heads and nearly collapsed from hyperventilating. They called the campus paramedics and everything, took biometric readings and fed me oxygen until I could get back on my feet. By the time the whole episode was over everyone had eaten the catered breakfast, which I was kinda sad about. They had a lot of eggs and meat. A Lot.

I still don't think that many people at the unit fully understand my disease, which is unfortunate. But it's my responsibility to make sure that it's understood and that I don't do anything too stupid in light of it. In any case we earned our 3/C anchors, which is nice, and as the year is wrapping up now's as good a time as any to reflect on the lessons learned, trials overcome, competitors bested.

Maybe later.

7.4.04

This is quite possibly the most disgusting thing I've ever heard from anyone about anything.

It's sick. It's absolutely sick.

For those too lazy or too late to follow the link, our !President said, in response to a question about the new wave of violence in Iraq, "That's what you're seeing going on: These people hate freedom, and we love freedom, and that's where the clash occurs... it's going to take a while for them to understand what freedom is all about."

Fuck you. Fuck You you shiteating walking corpse. I'm watching my brothers and sisters die for your jackass policy of forcing people to live by the American code of freedom (and there's no shortage of irony there), and you stand here behind your SS guard and ivory-plated toothbrushes and grin like your mother just won $50 in a bingo game.

Doesn't it seem a bit wrong to anyone else that we're showing them how to love Freedom by occupying their country and dictating terms about how they should govern themselves? WTF?

1.4.04

Ugh. I didn't want to go to the last Sub Club meeting of the year, mainly because I've been sleeping all day since the Final of Doom and the Midn in charge of the club is a (I just found out mysoginist) douchebag. Our sub lieutennant came in and demo'd a fairly realistic game where you play a sub commander, and he talked with us for a bit. Towards the end he mentioned that if we ever get a chance to talk to some old WWII sub vets, we should, because these guys had seen and done more by the time they were our age than we will in our entire careers. Combined with the LT's obvious depth of technical skill I left our unit feeling like a ten year-old kid who doesn't know nothin' about nothin'. It's really the first time in a long, long time that I've actually felt young.
Woah. I just had my ass handed to me by a test, which I normally don't really mind. If it's a subject like calculus, the red hate for which boils in my soul to a rythmic pounding like that of an Apache helo on it's way to kill, then I pretty much expect to do poorly and it's no shocker when I do. But this was in Naval History, my chosen major, man! My fellow midshipmen relied on me last night to help them in reviewing for this test, and I feel like I've let them down horribly. The dates of battles, the major players, all things I've heard and read about a thousand times, I discovered had never really solidified in my memory. Who was in charge of TF16 in the Battle of Midway? RADM Spruance, but did I get that right when it mattered? No one can say.

Damn. It's humbling, which is good, in a way. Guess I've got some reading to do.