K-9, 24-7

Who'da thought this term would be worse than that time I took Information Gathering? But, when I'm not writing papers, watching films, or getting beat on headline writing, I get to do really cool stuff like ride around with the cops.

Spent 4 hours in a K-9 unit yesterday with a Czechoslovakian dog named Creck and his human, Tony. We toured the town looking for crime and finding nothing. Creck didn't get out of the car except to chase his rope-ball or intimidate some stoners in a stolen car. It'sa' nicea town, this Oregon. We don't have a lot of trouble with the bad people. Two of our calls were for nothing and one ended before we even got there.

I likes small town living.

Maybe I'll be a cop. It's got to be better than sitting in here on a Sunday and responding to emails calling me "Sir" or "Gentlemen" -- mein Gott, when will the old men learn that women are in the fecking workplace?

Roger that. Hateful out.

The Bomb

I'm o'pposed to be working on my paper about The Seventh Seal, but in my weekly newspaper reading for typos and copy edit errors, I came across the review (and full-page ad) for Dr. Atomic, John Adams' new opera ... and I'm totally obsessed with it. The YouTube videos have weird pop-up notes ("This is my favorite song") which irritate me too much to add any of them to the blog, but I can't stop staring at the photos and wishing there was a way to make the opera entirely black and white (apart from "Red Alert").

Heh ... I have nerdy opera fantasies ... heh heh ...

Okay, yeah ... back to Bergman. Religion, art and death ... yah yah yah.

Reporting Has Made Me Sic

Dude, I know it was that kid next to me coughing up a lung on Thursday. School is a germ breeding ground, my friends. Half of the editing class was out with it, and now I had to cancel my police ride-along.

So to all the people I asked to commit a crime, I'm sorry. If you got pulled over I was not there to report it. Can you do it again next week? Thanks.

Not so sick that I can't work on a Halloween costume. This year it's cartoon characters (don't say it Silvia ... I know. I KNOW, it would be so easy, but I'm not gonna do it, ya hear? I'm not.) and we've been to the Value Village to stock up on props. The cousin/roommate is going to be awesome, although I still think Skeletor would have been great, but still, he's hit on a good one ... hey, maybe I'll be Skeletor.

That is all.

Badda Boom. Badda Bing.

I just forgot my password to log into Blogger. That's where my head's at.

Every year I've got at least one class that breaks'a my heart. It's usually in the Journalism school, and this term it's that Reporting class. You know, friends, I want to stay positive about it, but when you get your story back with a page full of typed notes on what's wrong with it (with a brief pat-your-back start) and there are red marks throughout the piece ... mein Gott. It's a crusher. What makes it worse (and I know, I KNOW, good students don't do this) is that I looked across the table at someone else's story. There was a 3 line cover sheet and 2 marks of red pen.
2.
And I'm sure one of them was "great job!"

To balance, I got 100% on a copy editing assignment -- So I'm done with writing. I'm just going to correct other people's junk from now on. That's the job for me. Too bad copy ed. internships are in places like Ohio or Pennsylvania or Iowa.

I mean, I don't want to regret going to school and all, but I like Eugene. I don't want to live in Winesburg, Ohio and work for Little Town News. I want to stay here, where I just got the books shelved. But, apparently, if I want to translate this experience into real work I'll need to be flexible on location (and pay scale). Had I known that by graduation I'd be getting an unusable degree I would have switched over to the English Department a long time ago and worked at a bookstore/library/legit job like the majority of real people I know. You were all totally right. I chose poorly. As it is, I'll just pay this off and be thankful that I learned a little something about Italian, Beat poetry and Bollywood.

Cah, and I'll come out of my university experience without even having met a husband. Why? Why? Shoulda' rushed a sorority when I had the chance. If only I'd gone Kappa Delta...

ver. min. man.

We came home from the market on Thursday and found Veda wrestling on the floor with what turned out to be a giant spider. The f**ker was almost too big for the pint glass to get around him. And the big toothy-looking things on the front ... dude. Huge.

Then, last night while I'm cooking food and moving back and forth between the counter space, I hear behind me: "Oh. My. God."

The cousin/roommate had just gone outside to check the meter to see what kind of damage the ceiling heat might do, so I had pictures in my head of the thing spinning out of control and what winter would be like without heat and how much that would suck because it would be yet another winter where I freeze in my room -- But then he says:

"There's a dead mouse in the kitchen."

Yeah, right there. Right where I had been standing and picking out which onion to use.

So, on the one hand, Veda's proven that she can finish the job, which was something Cat never did. Cat would carry a mouse around in her mouth for fun and cousin/roommate always had to seal the deal. But, on the other hand, does this mean we're going to be sharing the house with critters all winter? If so, watch your backs. She looks sweet enough, but...

Veda, what's happened?

He's dead. He said horrible things. He didn't want me around anymore. He told me to get out. And then he laughed at me. He wouldn't stop laughing. I told him I'd kill him. He said I didn't have guts enough. I didn't mean to do it. I didn't mean to, I tell you. But the gun kept going off, over and over again. Then he was lying there, looking at me, just looking at me. You've got to help me. Give me money to get away - and time. I've got to get away before they find him.

(wearily) I can't get you out of this, Veda.

Essay Time

School is stupid. I hate it. The end.

Women & Minorities in the Media -- Apart from learning that I'm racist because I'm white, this is so far all familiar territory, which makes it a see-saw class: one moment comforting and familiar, and the next boring and a little tedious. But, just so you know -- You. You're white. You're a racist. So was Richard Burton and the Crocodile Hunter, who were also, by virtue of being men, sexist. Mind it.

Philosophy of Film -- That professor is a super hard-ass. He makes us watch movies and talk about them! Fecking' A. Who the hell does he think he is?

Newspaper Editing -- Fine until we had a math quiz. But I think I'd like a job as the grammar tsarina at the local daily. This may be my niche.

Reporting II -- If I start to talk about it I'll cry. I have no time to do the work because everything we're reporting on takes place during the day (except the football game, which starts at 7 pm and we have a story due by midnight). I want to drop it, but, honestly, I'm going to have to do it sometime, so it may as well be now. But, fahhhhhhh, I'd like to pay my rent this term and I don't think skipping work to cover a civil case is going to help me with that.

Sum up: My GPA is probably going to drop like a hot rock because all focus will go into Reporting II. I even considered dropping the movie class, but I need it for the film certificate and it's the only bright spot in the entire schedule. Okay, I don't get philosophy and mentioning Kant in a sentence to me means only a little more than mentioning Spinoza, but it's good to watch movies with an eye toward a larger meaning. I just have to let go of studying narrative over style ... the struggle ... the struggle...

It's my job, man.

This email was waiting for me at work this morning. It's got everything except the dogs nipping at his rear-end (defiled all medical treatment indeed...):

My name is David Ibrahim, a merchant in Oman. I have recently been diagnosed with Esophageal cancer, which has defiled all medical treatment. Expert diagnosis has shown that I have few months to live.

The intention of this email is to employ the expertise of a business entrepreneur, who can identify a viable investment and guarantee reasonable returns on my wealth. This is to secure a future for my 4 years old son who lost his mother during birth. I cannot rely on his closest relatives any more, as they did not show responsible behaviour two years ago when I entrusted half of my wealth to them to invest on his behalf. They thought I wouldn’t survive the operation and then used the money for their personal needs.

To prevent any more mishaps, my attorney will act as a check, monitoring every aspect of the investment. Funds should be split in half and distributed to charity organisation and the other half, as investment for my son.

If this interests you, please reach me on the email address: --------------- to discuss terms and compensation.

Kind regard
David Ibrahim

The Political Blog

I got the laptop ordered, but only after crying into the phone: "This is the fourth phone number I've had today. They won't talk to me in Finance. How am I supposed to get this done?" -sniff- "Sorry ... I'm just so ... frustrated." Crying women make men nervous, I guess.

She breaks just like a little giiiirrrrlll.

Watched part of the debate, but, gosh, that opening bit about the mahms and dads on the soccer field kinda, you know, made me, well, gee ... kinda fecking furious. Dad's deciding on how to change his vote to Democrat. Seriously. He told mom "I wish the positions were reversed," which means he feels obligated to vote with the party, something he told me NEVER to do: "If the better man is on the other side, then you need to vote for him." He'll come around and see that light, unless Palin cries and then, well, gosh ...

I counted about 11 uses of "nu-cu-ler" from Palin before we turned it off to watch an old episode of Ryan's Hope -- the cousin/roommate didn't believe that the psycho bad guy from Dirty Harry played Frank, so we recorded it. (Man, the Soap Opera Channel ... what a crazy thing.)

But the funniest part of the debate, apart from her accusing Biden of "throwing up the white flag of surrender," which I thought was pretty ballsy for a girl, was her phrase "environmentally friendly drilling."

Will someone please explain to me what the f**k that is.

Award-Winning Customer Service

If that award is WORST, I believe it.

For 5 days I've been trying to buy a fecking Dell mini laptop. They had a PayPal option and I used it (why not? It's secure, right?). PayPal wanted to verify it was me placing the order, so I went through their dog-and-pony verification process, and all was good. Tuesday I check my order status and it's cancelled. I call Dell. 7 times -- although technically only 4, since they hung up on my twice and once they transferred me to PayPal who had already fixed the problem!

So I put through another order. It was cancelled. I'm told that I have to talk to Dell finance, who won't call me back. I was put through to voicemail AGAIN. I called to put through another order and was transferred to THE PARTS DEPARTMENT ("You called the wrong number, ma'am." "THEY TRANSFERRED ME TO YOU!") who said they couldn't help me with the laptop order and that I had to call someone else or put it through online.

May I speak with your manager? "There's no manager here right now, ma'am."
They just hung up on me again.

Dell. You. Suck.