Sunday, March 25, 2007

I just discovered RSS feeds

...so clearly, no work on my senior essay is getting done. I have, however, managed to drink over a liter of diet Coke and chew through two packs of Orbit, and it's not even 2:00 yet.

Ooh, gotta go, two new posts on Lifehacker...

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Oh, my head.

In the pursuit of knowledge and graduation, I just spent a good hour of my life subjecting myself to articles from the dread bile that is the National Review. For my senior essay I'm writing about Nancy Pelosi's accession to the speakership and women as civilly legitimate actors, and oh, the sheer gendered venom is astounding. (Really, how much bearing does one's jewelry or clothes or hairstyle have on your ability to lead?) And for good measure they usually throw in some non sequitur comment about how feminists are trying to push women away from their natural roles as feminine pretty things blah blah blah. Lexis-Nexis, thou hast forsaken me.

In order to cheer (?) myself up, I went and reread Katha Pollitt's great blog post on International Women's Day here.
Not cheer, exactly, as more than anything it articulates just how much women's issues around the world demand more than one day a year of deliberate attention, but at least it's well written, in contrast with the other stuff I've spent time on today.

And here's a non sequitur of my own: how much do I love that there's a board game that's actually called "Fact or Crap"? They could have just called it "True or False," but lord knows the entertainment value would have been diminished to almost nothing.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Suburban consumerism, ahoy.

I went to a mall today for the first time since maybe last May; in terms of mockery potential, it was all I dreamed it could be, but I suppose that was facilitated by the company I was with as much as by any innate ridiculousness of things seen.

The clear zenith of the experience was in front of a Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory franchise (has anyone ever heard of these before? I sure hadn't), where shoppers were confronted with a massive, despondent-looking stuffed bear slumped over on its side such that it nearly blocked the store entrance. Yes, I did take a picture with it. Yes, in it we both look like we're sleeping off a bender.

Boy, if that don't put you in the mood for some milk chocolate pecan Bears (, apparently), I don't know what will...

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Spring Break (?)

Two sweet weeks of senior-essay-writing, although the "writing" part remains an abstraction at this point. I have, however, made extensive use of Preview's oval annotation tool on the three essays on the politics of recognition that I've managed to read so far. I finished the second and third ones today, and gave myself a not-entirely-intentional two and a half hour nap as a reward. I guess the semester has worn me out more than I'd imagined.

I've been more productive on non-academic fronts, if "productive" is understood to mean doing something, ANYTHING, that does not consist of my constantly refreshing my e-mail and then not responding to things I really should respond to. Example: I spent much of yesterday downloading a bunch of Mac software recommended by this guy. No particular reason, save that I am extremely suggestible. Oh, and I finally made use of the Adobe Photoshop and InDesign that a friend burned for me awhile ago. Photoshop scared me away pretty quick, but in InDesign I made text type out onto a curvy line! It was exhilarating.
Reductionism who in the what now?