Now's As Good A Time As Any

For a quartet of grad students in any physical science: “Four Significant Figures”. If anybody quits or anybody joins, no problem: “Three Significant Figures” or “Five Significant Figures”.

I’m trying to figure out whether it would be a good idea to go to school today. I have a fairly unpleasant cold, and I don’t think it would be very neighborly to risk transmitting it to my classmates. But on the other hand…Ben Gelber from Channel 4 is going to talk to my meteorology class. Ben Gelber, dude! He’s been a weatherman in town since before I even moved here! He’s one of the only local television personalities still around from back then! But…cough…hack…wheeze…I’m a little torn.

Well, I feel a little bad for Martin Scorsese, but The Aviator wasn’t his best movie, and it wasn’t the best movie or the best directed movie this year.

But what was up with Barbra Streisand? Why did she feel the need to be such a ham? Who does she think she is? How’s about you leave the irreverence to Mr. Rock?

I like watching the Oscars because I like seeing people thank people for stuff. I think saying thank you is very nice.

Chris Rock mentioned Pootie Tang twice! YES!

No matter how much I squinted, I couldn’t see Howard Hughes; I could only see Leonardo DiCaprio pretending to be Howard Hughes.

Not as good a movie as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and my brother says not as good as Hotel Rwanda. But Martin Scorsese is an awesome director and a cool dude. It’s just that there was nothing about this film that was particularly Scorsesesque to me.

I’m going to Medary Elementary today to teach some kids some physics stuff…well, if not to teach them stuff, then at least to have some fun with the experiments.

Meanwhile, I’m obsessively checking the status of my application for the M.Ed. program. I figure if I was able to get into law school with no legal experience and without being able to articulate any real reason I wanted to go, it shouldn’t be a big problem to get into a program for which I’ve been getting ready (even if I didn’t always know it) since high school. But I’m still nervous!

Boy, a lot of people sure pay attention to their hair. I was sitting the back of my geology class today and I noticed that I pretty much had the most unkempt hair in the room. People sure get a lot of fresh haircuts and use a lot of “product”. You have to put a lot of stuff in your hair to keep it straight by the time you get to the afternoon! No thank you, not for me.

And you sure have to put forth a lot of effort to not lose your hair! It’s either delicately applying gunk on your scalp and having to leave it there for like 15 minutes every day, or enduring the untoward side effects of the oral pharmaceutical alternative. I’m content to just let things take their course, you know, “to every thing there is a season”…besides, I’m not particularly known for my looks. There isn’t even a picture of me on this website.

There is a Grammy given out for “Best Recording Package”…but I still think there is something special about the cover itself that people remember.

• My lower back hurts.
• I’m meeting a new tutoring student on Thursday.
• My weekend next quarter will consist of Thursdays and Sundays.
• I finished Ray Davies’s “unauthorized autobiography”, X-Ray. Next up is probably one of Bob Woodward’s Bush books or The Pentagon’s New Map.
• If you see me taking photos of the sky with my camera, I’m not crazy, it’s an assignment for my meteorology class.
• Kevyn Shecket clue: “Kevyn” is, in this case, a woman’s name.

Kanye West’s album cover for “The College Dropout” is awesome. Probably the only great album cover among the major Grammy nominees this year. And I appreciate that he uses his real name…it’s a good name!

Apparently the blogging craze has hit theaters!

Guess what Mike Shecket did for fun tonight? He finished filing his state and federal taxes!

Ahhhh…a real musician actually playing real music, live. 110% professional. Even with all the fireworks and stuff going on. That’s pretty amazing, but you’ll recall that in the early 60’s, the Beatles played for tens of thousands of screaming fans with paltry amplification and no monitors. So a few explosions are nothing to this guy. What a great performer!

Go see “Million Dollar Baby” everybody! It has lots of what you go to the movies for! See it soon…I thought I heard somewhere that it was tanking at the box office. But you know and I know people don’t know anything about movies. But you and I know better. Go see it! It’s really good!

(Hurry up and go see it because I want to say stuff about it, but I want you to see it first…)

This whole business just goes to show that the concept of “rights” is preposterous. I think Ward Churchill ought to be able to say what he wants. So should you. But the Constitution isn’t going to stop someone from putting a bullet in his brain. Or yours. Or mine.

The truth is that no matter what you say or do there are always risks and consequences. Government intervention will never completely eliminate these risks and consequences. And on the other hand, even the severest penalties won’t keep some people from saying and doing what they wanted to do anyway.

As for me, I don’t even like to say things that I think someone will find annoying, let alone make them want to hurt me. I think I’ll leave the whole “speaking truth to power” thing up to someone a little braver than I.