Dead Squirrel

Holy retribution

2007-03-07T10:47:00.000-06:00

For what I thought was a rather shitty day yesterday for reasons I won't fully explain here(job issues, lack of ride to basketball game), today has been one hell of a day and it's not even 11am.

Job interview with Daktronics next week!
Found a ride to the game!

I'm pumped.

This is just wrong

2007-02-28T14:54:00.000-06:00

Of course you're special....

2007-02-27T13:56:00.000-06:00

....in your own little world

Abstract Satisfaction

2007-02-22T22:27:00.000-06:00

Who's with me?

2007-02-19T23:19:00.000-06:00

I have a NEED to go on an adventure and do things I never thought possible.

justification

2007-02-16T02:09:00.000-06:00

Myspace suit dismissed

IM Speak

2007-02-13T01:32:00.000-06:00

IM Speak sneaks into classrooms

In response to the 2 people wondering about last night's post....

2007-02-12T12:18:00.000-06:00

I had just finished reading this book, and for some reason, I felt that the Goo Goo Dolls were appropriate for afterwards

It's a really good book if you ask me, but I'll be biased in favor of the author Mick Foley no matter what. Here's the description from the amazon.com website.

If Freud and de Sade were to pen story lines for WWF Smackdown! the result might be this lurid coming-of-age novel by Foley, a former professional wrestler and author of two bestselling memoirs, Foley Is Good and Have a Nice Day! Andy Brown is an archetypal high school underdog, a misshapen, motherless misfit tormented by the football coach and tantalized by the minister's daughter. At home, dad Tietam is an alcoholic bodybuilding enthusiast who does nude calisthenics in the living room in between noisy bedroom sessions with a parade of three-night-stand women; he parents Andy by offering him beer, condoms and crude sexual pointers. As Andy learns about manhood from dubious role models, first-time novelist Foley finds adult fiction a truly unrefereed arena where the wrestling sensibility can break free of PG-13 constraints. The boisterous narrative fluctuates between bawdy picaresque and episodes of berserk violence full of smashed teeth, crushed tracheas, gouged eyes, sudden, tables-turning castration and heterosexual, homosexual, pedophilic and incestuous varieties of rape. The cartoonish characters are Oedipal tag teams battling for Andy's soul; every man is a bully or a pervert, every woman a sentimentalized madonna/whore duality ruined by male predation. Foley is not much of a stylist. He mingles villainous trash-talk dialogue and stilted sexual banter ("I'll admit right now to being somewhat distracted by the pleasant tingling in my penile area") in a Rabelaisian tone as self-conscious and overbearing as a large man in tiny trunks. But readers in the mood for vigorous pulp may enjoy this steroid-fueled brawl.

Despite all of the implied grossness from that description, it did bring up memories of what I wished for when I was younger. Part of the story involves Andy and his ever evolving relationship with Terri, the hottest girl in his school, who falls in love with him. All throughout the book, I was given the impression that Andy and Terri were the purest characters. Although it is not completely true and they have their faults, it reminded me of the idea of myself and a girl being the ones of the few not corrupt. It was an idealistic idea of mine that I still sometimes yearn for.

Nonetheless, I would recommend this book to anyone. You can get a copy at amazon.com for $6.99 Tietam Brown

You Know You're in a Strange Mood.....

2007-02-12T01:25:00.000-06:00

when the Goo Goo Dolls music is sounding really appropriate for the moment.

Republican Party

2007-02-09T10:54:00.000-06:00

My grandparents, bless their hearts, occasionally send out e-mails with random stories intended to make a point. Sometimes it's religion, sometimes it's politics, etc. Normally I don't read them entirely and delete them eventually without much thought. However I chose to read the latest one and I have to agree with it. Here it is:

A young woman was about to finish her first year of
college. Like so many others her age, she considered
herself to be a very liberal Democrat, and was very
much in favor of the redistribution of wealth.

She was deeply ashamed that her father was a rather
staunch Republican, a feeling she openly expressed.
Based on the lectures that she had participated in,
and the occasional chat with a professor, she felt
that
her father had for years harbored an evil, selfish
desire to keep what he thought should be his.

One day she was challenging her father on his
opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the
addition of more government welfare programs. The
self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her
professors had to be the
truth and she indicated so to her father. He responded
by asking how she was doing in school.

Taken aback, she answered rather haughtily that she
had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to
maintain, insisting that she was taking a very
difficult course load and was constantly studying,
which left her no time to go out and party like other
people she knew. She didn't even have time for a
boyfriend, and didn't really have many college friends
because she spent all her time studying.

Her father listened and then asked, "How is your
friend Audrey doing?"

She replied, "Audrey is barely getting by. All she
takes are easy classes, she never studies, and she
barely has a 2.0 GPA. She is so popular on campus;
college for her is a blast. She's always invited to
all the parties, and lots of times she doesn't even
show up for classes because she's too hung over."

Her wise father asked his daughter, "Why don't you go
to the Dean's office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off
your GPA and give it to your friend who only has a
2.0. That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and
certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution
of GPA."

The daughter, visibly shocked by her father's
suggestion, angrily fired back, "That wouldn't be
fair! I have worked really hard for my grades! I've
invested a lot of time, and a lot of hard work! Audrey
has done next to nothing toward her degree. She played
while I worked my tail off!"

The father slowly smiled, winked and said gently,
"Welcome to the Republican party!

"Hold up! I need to give you a ticket for those earbuds"

2007-02-09T08:13:00.000-06:00

Listening to Ipods while crossing street in NYC could get you a ticket

Linux

2007-02-05T00:03:00.000-06:00

I am really considering trying out Linux/Fedora the next time I reformat my desktop computer. It'd most likely be a dual boot situation so that I can still go to XP when I need something more comfortable and familiar. This fits in well with my mood overall of wanting to try out new OS's. I think if I get another laptop computer, it's going to be a Mac. DSU is going through some issues with the Tablet Initiative, and I don't know how much longer I'm going to have this tablet PC after May. Nonetheless, if I could have it my way right now, i'd have 3 different OS's on 3 different computers.

Go me!

Wired: Listening Post

2007-01-23T14:18:00.000-06:00

Maybe Record Companies *Should* Be Losing Money

9 Year old jetsetter

2007-01-18T21:45:00.000-06:00

9 Year Old jetsetter

new feed

2007-01-17T17:52:00.000-06:00

http://feeds.feedburner.com/DeadSquirrel

Graduation

2007-01-16T14:17:00.000-06:00

So I realized I should probably look into the process necessary to graduate in May. I started browsing the DSU website and realized that they encourage you to apply for graduation the semester before your last. That said, I was already late with the process, and quickly went over to Enrollment services to start the process. I now have a meeting with someone tomorrow at 3pm. The only real problem with this at the moment is that I'm not completely registered with all the courses I need. The dreaded internship isn't complete yet but will hopefully be so very shortly, and must be applied for by Thursday the 25th. I have a good chance to get registered for the internship class but I will probably need to look elsewhere than just Logic Lizard to get all of the necessary hours in, as I doubt they'll give me enough alone.

Given the amount of friends that I have who are set to graduate in May, it will be a huge tragedy for me to miss this.

Welcome to the Semester of Stress.

Woman dies from too much water consumption without peeing

2007-01-14T01:55:00.000-06:00

this is the link yo people

Job hunting

2007-01-08T15:15:00.000-06:00

I don't quite know how many hours I'll be getting or any other details really, but it looks like I may have found myself a new job. A friend of mine tipped me off about a new business headed by DSU professors, and about how they only had one graphic designer at the moment. I tried to go visit the person I was referred to last friday, but missed him. I tried again this morning and missed him again, only this time I sent him an e-mail. I need to meet up with him this wednesday to flesh out details but lines like "I'd be happy to have you work on projects as they come up." indicate success in finding a job. Now to just have it count for internship and get 240 hours out of it, and I'll be good to go for awhile.

quick update

2007-01-05T12:29:00.000-06:00

I may have found myself a job/internship. I need to talk with some people but here's to hoping. School and probably my last semester starts on the 16th, so I have 11 days of break left. Told a girl I liked her, she didn't like me back in that way. It happens, Maybe another girl will come by.

Doubt I'll be layout editor of the school paper for more than a couple more issues. I'll miss the spot but yeah.

SD election results in a nutshell

2006-11-08T02:34:00.000-06:00

By Patrick Lalley
plalley@argusleader.com
PUBLISHED: November 8, 2006

The message is clear: Hands off ... and don't be stupid.

Taken as a whole, the 11 questions on our ballot Tuesday - from abortion to gay marriage to property taxes - are an ink-blot personality test for the state's body politic.

Now that we've splattered the numbers over the canvas, let's hold them up to the light and see what images present themselves.

The results don't fit the textbook stereotype of our state.

But one thing is clear - South Dakotans value liberty. They bristle at the imposition of a particular philosophy or theology, on the whole.

And they won't buy into goofy social experimentation such as letting criminals bring judges before a grand jury or freezing property taxes for some people and not others.

That's why I love this state so.

Too often, we get painted with that big red brush that the national pundits reserve for the biannual election cycle.

It would be a lot easier if that were true. But South Dakotans don't fit a simple mold. Our one-shy-of-a-dozen ballot-question parade is testament to that.
Consider this election a new High Plains manifesto:

# Keep the government out of my life as much as possible.

We don't like abortion, but we're not really comfortable telling other people - particularly those in circumstances most of us can only imagine - what they can and can't do. And in a state that you wouldn't call "gay friendly," a constitutional amendment defining marriage between a man and woman almost didn't pass.

# Maintain personal liberty.

If you want to pour your lunch money down a rat hole in a dark corner of a gas station hoping for a big payoff, have at it, champ. Thanks for the property tax payment.

OK, medicinal marijuana didn't make it, but it was darn close. It's not like we're all on the bud, but if it helps you, that might be all right.

# We don't cotton to outside agitators. Included in this are the bunch from California who tried pushed the Judicial Accountability amendment down our throats and the cell phone companies trying to get their taxes lowered.

# Start school when school needs to start. If you want your school to start after Labor Day, that's fine; go ahead. But most of us prefer our kids back in school attending the business of developing their minds so they can compete in the global job market, not supplying cheap labor for the tourism industry.

# We're all equal in the eyes of the Lord.

That includes Gov. Mike Rounds, who, if he wants to attend his kid's basketball games, can carpool like the rest of us. I'm busy, my neighbor's busy, we're all busy.

Speaking of my neighbor, the Johnsons should pay the same property taxes on their three-bedroom, split-level foyer with a finished basement as I pay on mine (even if they did move in five years after we did and paid $19,000 more, and didn't they paint it a weird color, and can't they take better care of the lawn, thank you very much.)

# Keep my kid away from the smokes. If a buck a pack is what it takes, then so be it.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell. Six months of good, hard campaigning decided in one furious flurry of voting.

Let's make a deal, you and me, that we'll allow this manifesto to stand for a while.

I don't want to be back here voting on video lottery or abortion or property taxes or cell phone taxes or who should marry whom for at least two election cycles.

The people have spoken.

Listen this time.

Reach Voices editor Patrick Lalley at plalley@argusleader.com or 331-2291.

Artistic?

2006-10-12T11:59:00.000-06:00

I don't know why, but at the current moment I have a desire to create more output in artistic ways. I also think I want to focus more on traditional arts as opposed to digital arts on the computer. I know I didn't buy myself an eisle for nothing. I also have my sculpture class which should be rather interesting and productive, despite the fact that I skipped it this morning. We'll have to see.

Other majors?

2006-10-09T21:26:00.000-06:00

I posted the question of: "If you weren't going for your current major, what would you go for?" to a friend of mine. We're both going for graphic design. She said that she'd probably go for something in theatre or music. I sat for a moment and understood that both of those would really fit her. After she was done, I posted my answer to my own question for her to see. My answer ended up being Sociology. However, I am not sure if that's complete. I'd want to go with sociology and communication. Delving further into that, I grew up with the internet. I've been online since probably about late 1997. I remember this because I remember sitting around our old department store(RIP), waiting for our dialup modem to connect. Now that it's 2006, I am probably coming up on being online for half my life, in about less than 5 years. That said, I would probably get into sociolizing and communication on the internet. I have to admit this wasn't completely realized on my own. This realization really came about when I discovered Apophenia. This is a blog and overall website run by Danah Boyd, who is "a PhD student in SIMS at Berkeley and a social media researcher at Yahoo!" In my own blurbed wording, she studies socializing and communication in online mediums. It is rather intriguing.

Pretty sure we need to get more art museums in Texass

2006-10-02T15:08:00.000-06:00

Teacher suspended for showing nude art to 5th graders

Theme ideas for site

2006-09-07T22:39:00.000-06:00

Well, I've been wanting to redesign my site again. However, I'm stumped on themes for it. For instance, this one is "Bagels and Burnt Toast". The only half decent idea I've come up with is either "ambugaton" which is a reference to Sleepytime Gorilla Museum and according to UrbanDictionary, means "extreme chaos". The other idea, which is a variation of this, is "ambumungaton", which I will not explain unless you have a strong stomach.

Good day

2006-08-28T15:16:00.000-06:00

Parents came and went today.

We got my brother unregistered from college for the semester, got my financial aid situation figured out(I got $1048 back, but also paid $160 for a last minute credit). Last but not least, after much struggle, we got myself a new toilet.

It's a good day i tell ya.