Don't Let Me Down
(31 January - 9 February 2006)
9 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-I can't believe I'm going to be debating tomorrow!
So very exciting. It's been very nearly 4 years since my last competitive round, so I've been away from APDA
almost as long as I was in APDA. Tomorrow's going to be great.
-Anyone want to play Fantasy Baseball this year? I've set up a league, so e-mail me for the signup
details. I'll probably e-mail people about this later, but I figured I'd just put it out there now. The draft is
tentatively set for March 8th.
8 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-Tons of new answers in QFG, as well as the standard
two new questions. Go check it out!
-Em worked from home today & got a strange impression of how much time I
spend on the phone during the day. It was just one of those days. It looks like we're close to progress with a
variety of things, however, including the Kia possibly. More to come on those fronts.
-Had a practice round over the
'net with Greg, Clea, & Russ. Russ isn't going to BU, but the other two are. I was a step slow on arguments
in my LO to be sure, but it probably didn't help to be debating on a Teamspeak channel with two headsets on my head.
Regardless, my excitement is growing almost exponentially.
7 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-Okay, stick with that decision this time. For
the love of God.
-All the hallmarks are there. But I'm slowly digging myself out. After all, there's a lot to
look forward to.
6 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-Today was better, & I actually got a little bit
done. Not a lot, but a little. So it goes. I think that while I'm frustrated with things as they stand now
in a variety of arenas, there should be a lot of hope for resolution in the coming weeks. The move, man, the
move.
-Em & I went bowling to take advantage of Castro Village's Monday night specials. I rolled a 432 series in
the interesting scores of 155, 133, & 144. I had a lot of disappointing chops, missed spares, & so on, but I
really can't complain too much with those scores. Maybe a little. Tack on eating at Chipotle & it was a very
fun evening!
5 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-"Brokeback Mountain" was excellent &
a lot more complicated than I expected it to be. One decently large flaw in my opinion, but I understand why it's there
& I can let it slide in movies like this a lot more than, say, "As Good as it Gets". I don't think it's
the best of the year, but it might make the top 5, which is why I wanted to see it before I made the list.
-This is a
rough stretch.
-SuperBowl was at least a good game, though the commercials were quite disappointing. Also the
outcome was disappointing, but I've never been all that invested in football. Now the M's are the only Seattle team not
to make it to the finals in their sport... the time is coming!
4 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-& back down, which makes little to no sense.
At this point, it's quite difficult to determine what Alexa or any other tracker is basing statistics on.
-I... I
don't even know what to say anymore.
3 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-Okay, maybe
I'm wrong about not getting traffic. See the thin blue line on the side? A rank of 25k for the day is absurd,
& I can't complain about 30 per million either.
-Also, according to this,
one in every 10,000 blog posts yesterday included a link to the Blue Pyramid. Which alternatively does & doesn't
sound like a lot. Relative to the norm, though, it's a lot.
2 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-Can't seem to kick this lingering depression.
I joked that it was post-partum depression from kicking off the University Quiz, especially to see it not get picked up
by any major sites so far. Including I am Bored, which has picked up every single
BP quiz (including the Trains & Railroads Quiz) before this one. I don't know how I became so mentally invested in
this gig anyway, but when one drops 500 free hours of work into something, well... sigh. I have that weird feeling of
the bottom falling out from under me that I associate with sometime in April & feels way out of place for early February.
I feel like I'm about to hit a wall... I can see it coming & my hairs tingle with the knowledge of impending
impact, but no one can explain to me why I'm in a crash test in the first place.
1 February 2006
[from
Oakland]
-Well it seems clear that the University Quiz isn't
going to launch the BP to compete with its February 2004 meteoric rise. In fact, I'm beginning to face the idea that
such a rise may never happen again. Needless to say, I'm pretty depressed about this conclusion, but there's nothing I
can do but hope & wait.
-Went over to the westernmost reach of San Francisco to sign the lease today. Both the
landlord & his son who was showing us the place & handling most of the affairs have had significant strokes &
it's enough to make me want a stroke less than almost any other malady I could consider. Regardless, we officially have
a lease & we'll be moving in starting on the 16th, giving us almost 2 weeks to make the transition. I guess that
means it's going to be a Berkeley era again, though all this back & forth makes me want to combine Oakland & Berkeley
for Introspection purposes... ah well. I'll figure something out. The meta-Into' stuff should really be the last
thing on my mind right now.
31 January 2006
[from
Oakland]
-The University Quiz was
taken somewhere between 11,000 & 13,000 times yesterday. Did you take it yet?
-You guys should all join me in
playing AlexaDex. It's like the Hollywood Stock Exchange, but
for internet sites. It's all fake money & you try to invest in who will get more traffic. Fun!
-So we got
the place!! This is very exciting news & now Em can stop over-looking for places & we can settle into the issue
of how we're going to move everything. The move-in date looks like it will be close to optimal (sometime in
mid-February), the rent seems like a steal, & the location is well nigh perfect. Walking to all my favorite local
restaurants (except Chipotle), plus BART... wow, it's going to be good.
-Listening to Bush speak is so funny. He's
awful, his policies are awful, & his record is dismal on the most important issues to me, those of violence & war.
I hasten to note that John Kerry would have identical rhetoric about war & security in a hypothetical State of the
Union he might have given tonight as well. What's funny with Bush is that he's so stupid & vilified in my head
that it genuinely shocks me when he says something legitimately right. & there were a couple moments like that
tonight. Most notable among these was his comment about immigration policy, which actually was almost a verbatim
rendition of something I'd told someone in an argument a few days earlier. The country's economy wouldn't
survive without illegal immigrants, & it's frankly amazing to hear a president admit that. Here's the thing with
Bush, & it's always been his thing... he's just in it for 100% pure personal self interest. Call him Ayn W. Bush.
Every policy decision, every stance on the issues he holds, every comment he makes, can be traced directly back to his
own personal gain, both now & after he leaves office. He doesn't want to pay higher taxes, he wants to live in a
society with an economy & where he can profit off of unchecked free trade, he wants to be known for fixing his dad's
unfinished war, he doesn't want to have to pay into social security because he personally won't need it when he gets old,
& so on. He nominated Harriet Miers because he just wanted his friend to be on the Supreme Court! I challenge
you to come up with a Bush policy that cannot be wholly explained in terms of Bush looking out for #1... that's always been
his policy, & it's a lot easier to understand him when one sees this reality.
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