Entry 70: Old Man Problems (and Where All The Women At)

I’m not an old man yet, by any measure, but I’m starting to notice the onset of some old man problems. For instance, I can never keep my undershirt tucked in. This bothers me because when it’s not tucked in I get “drafty”. The weather here is getting chilly, so I usually wear a t-shirt with a sweater or sweatshirt (jumpers, as they call them here). I like to keep the t-shirt tucked in, because otherwise cool air gets in and makes my back cold.

But, for some reason, I can never keep it tucked in. Maybe I need to get longer shirts or start wearing suspenders or a singlet or something. Whatever the case may be, I’m constantly fiddling with my shirt and my belt, and that’s an old man thing to do. I never had this problem as a young man. I don’t know if it’s because my shirts stayed tucked in or because I didn’t care if they came untucked or what. All I know is, I never had this problem before, I have it now, and it’s annoying.

Also, I forget things now, and I used to never forget things, ever. That’s a bit of an exaggeration, obviously, but not much of one. I had a fantastic memory, especially of people. I’d meet somebody once briefly, see them years later and be able to place them instantly. I had such a good memory of people that I used to pretend that I didn’t remember people, especially chicks, so that I wouldn’t come off as some sort of weirdo. “Hey, I know you. Summer Smith. Yeah, we were in the same freshman English class for two weeks, three years ago. You lived in Mathis Hall and once wrote an essay on the importance of sleep for college students. You used to sit with your friend Julie… What?… No… No, I’m not a stalker.”

Now, I forget people and things all the time. I recently came across a photo of my old lacrosse team from about 10 years ago, and I couldn’t remember a bunch of people’s names, or I could only remember their first names, but not their last names. Things like this just didn’t happen when I was younger.

Also, access is a bit slower now for things I do remember. I’m not lightning fast anymore. I frequently can’t come up with something when it’s relevant, and then later it pops into my brain out of nowhere. This happened just yesterday. I was talking about the band Nick Cave (an Aussie, by the way) was in after the Badseeds, and couldn’t remember their name, despite the fact that I had just heard an interview with him, in which this band was referenced many times. An hour later, out of the blue, “Grinderman! It’s Grinderman,” but at this point nobody cares. The brain is an odd thing.



Speaking of the brain, I read a really interesting paper recently about the underrepresentation of women in mathematics. As a math major, this is something that has always interested me. It’s almost completely a male dominated field (which sucks for single dudes, by the way, when I first started grad school, I made sure to make some friends in the English department). Nobody really knows why. There have been various theories espoused (one of which precipitated the dismissal of a very prominent university president), but nothing very satisfactory.

The authors of this paper performed a study, and what they found is that among people who believe that math is mostly an innate skill (a “gift” that you have or don’t have), women score much worse than men on math tests. Among people who believe that math is a learned skill (something you can cultivate), women and men score the same, and generally they both score higher than the other group. So basically, if teachers can convince girls that they can learn to be good at math, it will probably go a long way in closing the current gender gap.



Interesting stuff, to be sure, but it begs two questions. 1) Is math a learned skill or an innate skill? 2) Why is there a male-female disparity in scoring in the group that believes mathematical skill is a gift?

Concerning 1), I’m definitely of the opinion that it’s more a learned talent than a gift. I mean, maybe not everybody can be Gauss, no matter how hard they work, but I think just about everybody can learn the basics of college-level math through calculus, if they applied themselves. Usually when people say, “I just can’t do math,” what they really mean is, “I don’t like math and don’t want to put in the time and effort it will take to learn it.”

In my opinion, it’s like this for most things. “I just suck at sports” equals “I never learned to play as a kid.” “I can’t lose weight” equals “I don’t want to maintain the discipline it takes to diet and exercise properly.” “I’m a sex addict” equals “I don’t want to stop sending pictures of my junk to women who aren’t my wife, but I have to, because I got caught, so I’ll try to convince everybody that it is some sort of uncontrollable urge.” (OK, that last one might not be very fitting, but you get my point.) There are obviously exceptions. Some people really do have physical constraints, but in my opinion, for the overwhelming majority of people, it’s about the willingness to put in the time and effort it takes to get good at something, not about innate limitations.

For me personally, I always tell people I’m just not gifted musically, but when I “played” the saxophone in middle school, I hated it. I hated music class in general, I almost never practiced, and I just generally sloughed it off. I was a finger player, meaning whenever we had performances in front of audiences, I was asked to just finger the notes and not actually make any sound with my instrument.

In 7th grade, I was relegated to the “B Band” and then, literally, kicked out of band altogether. The band teacher called my house and left a message for my parents on the answering machine, telling them he would like it if I switched to a different course. That actually happened (and I was ecstatic, when it did, by the way). So, I say, “I just don’t have any musical talent,” but when I actually had the opportunity to learn something about music, I was a fuckoff. Had I actually applied myself, who knows? Maybe I would be able to play an instrument or carry a tune now.



Concerning 2), I don’t know why this is, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say it has something to do with the male ego. I’m not sure if it’s something biological or evolutionary or what, but dudes seem to be more sure of themselves than chicks, even when they have less reason to be. Maybe in the case of math, male ego kind of cancels out any preconceived doubts a dude has about his innate abilities.

Along similar lines, men also seem to be more competitive than women. In the Scrabble documentary Word Wars, a good female player is asked why they are so few women among very elite Scrabble players (zero in the current top twenty) and her answer is (I’m paraphrasing): “Women just don’t care as much if they dominate.” Maybe men are more attracted to competitive environments than women (and math can get very competitive as you get further along). I don’t know.

Anyway, on a completely different topic, I watched a truly terrible movie last night: Brain Smasher… A Love Story, starring Andrew Dice Clay and Teri Hatcher. (I know, I know, with those two costars, how could it possibly fail?) It vacillates between entertainingly horrible and just plain horrible. I recommend anybody who wants to be a comedian watch it. Guaranteed, they’ll be thinking, “Andrew Dice Clay, if I this guy can make it…” The Dice Man, seriously, what a hack. How did he ever get popular? I mean his fingerless batting glove / sweatband look is pretty awesome and all, but…



I’ve also started watching a new TV series Breaking Bad. It stars Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) as an underachieving high school chemistry teacher who gets terminal lung cancer and starts making meth as a way to finance his treatment and leave his family some money before he kicks off. It’s a great premise, because it allows the character, a normal guy, to do really abnormal things. If you know you’re going to die in a few years, and the only thing you care about is making money to leave for your family, what risks would you not be willing to take?



It has a bit too much faky cop-show-style action in it, but it’s really good. I’m
enjoying it. I’ve watched at least an episode a night for the last week, and I’m already through the first season and a half in a week. I’m not going to watch any episodes tonight, though. It’s pretty intense and can be depressing (What? A show about cancer and drugs, depressing?), so I’m taking a break.

Well, that pretty much sticks a fork in this entry. I’ll just go out on a boastful note. I recently received an email from Will Shortz and in it he mentioned the following, “BTW, I've just finished a second collection of my favorite daily NYT crosswords, this time from 2002-10 ... and you have two puzzles in it!”

That’s right. Who’s the man?

Entry 69: I Know Politics Bore You...

[In honor of this being my 69th post]

So, I sat down to write this post, with about five different topics that I wanted to hit upon. Politics was the first thing on my list -- big mistake. Two hours into it, I realized I hadn’t even hit the second topic yet. The upshot is an almost entirely political entry, which generally, I try to avoid, but once in a while I guess it’s OK. Plus, it is a pretty brilliant commentary…

I had a series of job interviews this past week with a company in the States. They went well. From my perspective, in fact, they went very well. But, if you think about it, my perspective isn’t really too important. Their perspective is what matters, so we shall see.

Having a good job to go back to would really be a load off my mind. Joblessness is super high in the US right now and signs point to it remaining that way for some time. There just isn’t enough political will to reverse this trend of wide-scale underemployment. It’s an utter failure of leadership on both sides of the aisle, if you ask me.


I’m not quite cynical enough to think that the Reps are consciously and maliciously undermining a recovery, because it will help them in 2012, but let’s just say it certainly doesn’t behoove them to help the jobless right now. And people have a funny way of not doing things when it doesn’t behoove them to do so.

The Dems aren’t much use either. They are saying little about unemployment, instead focusing on the same things as the Reps – inflation and budget balancing. Important things, to be sure, but right now people need work, period. I don’t think I’m alone in saying that it would bring me more peace of mind to have a job than to know that all my “assets” are protected because inflation is low.

I’m not sure what Obama’s strategy is, here. Maybe he’s taking the left vote for granted and appealing to center, but I don’t think this is a good move. (I’m not even sure that there is a left and a center.) I think his entire platform should be jobs and healthcare (health care?). I’m convinced that these are winning issues for him.

The larger problem, of course, is the two-party system. It sucks. If you went to a bar and they only had Bud Lite and Miller Lite, you’d be thinking, “what type of shitty place is this?”, but when it comes to the leaders of our nation, we just shrug our shoulders, "that’s just the way it is, dude."

And the only really prospect right now of a legitimate third party is the Tea Party? Never mind. I recant the above paragraph. I’m cool with a two party system.


Actually, the Tea Party has some things going for it – enthusiasm, grass roots, and a mostly genuine desire from its members to “fix” America. Their activism is somewhat admirable. The problem with the Tea Party is that its members are absolutely wedded to their small-government-is-always-better/private-sector-is-always-better ideology. The Tea Baggers can’t see things objectively. Even when the facts are against them, they hold fast to their dogma.

This was epitomized by the Sarah Palin-Paul Revere farce (Palin is a de facto Tea Party bigwig). I mean, who really cares that she didn’t know the story of Paul Revere – a story that is probably heavy in lore, anyway? She could’ve easily just said, “Oops, I messed up”, and that would’ve been that, but she couldn’t accept that she was wrong. It didn’t compute. Instead of an admission, she tried to explain that 2 + 2 really does equal 5, and her followers literally tried to rewrite history, rather than admit she was wrong.

(By the way, you’ve probably seen this before, but if you haven’t, watch it. It’s funny.)

The Colbert Report
Tags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

So, no, the Tea Party does not appeal to people, like me, who try to look at things objectively, and who try to be rational and scientific. For me, the Tea Bagging philosophy isn’t completely unfounded. Often the private sector is more efficient than the public sector, often government bureaucracies do impede progress, often unions do go to far, often regulations do stunt economic growth, but (and this is a rap-video-sized but) not always. It’s stupid (and dangerous) to think that we can turn everything over to the private sector, and the market will miraculously work everything out. What we should do instead is apply small-government/private-sector principles when it makes sense to apply them, when it benefits society to do so, and not apply them when it doesn’t. Am I wrong?

There are glaring examples right now of areas in which the government can probably do things better than the private sector, one of which is healthcare (the military and prisons are others). And there is nothing magical about why the government can probably do better, it’s perfectly logical, perfectly rational.

For one, the government can have the objective of maximizing coverage (subject to the given budget constraints, of course). A private corporation cannot have this objective, they must maximize profits. Coverage is important only in so far as it leads to profits. For private insurance companies, this means it is in their best interests to cover healthy people, and to not cover sick people, when of course sick people need coverage the most. For private health care providers, this means it is in their best interest to carry out the most-profitable treatments, not necessarily the best treatments. Even if people aren’t outright corrupt, these are not incentive systems that benefit society.

For two, the government can have a much larger pool of people. When it comes to insurance, more insured people in the same pool, generally means lower costs for comparable coverage. And, I’m not just waxing theoretically, here. This is backed up by evidence. Medicare (government run insurance for the elderly) costs are rising less fast than private insurance costs. Also, the US has a terrible cost-to-quality ratio when compared to many other nations with more public healthcare systems (just Google "healthcare US vs. world").

Watch this clip below. It’s sadly funny. The subject is Paul Ryan being asked about single-payer healthcare. He plays the typical politician role perfectly spitting out rehearsed lines ("fiscal house of cards") without addressing the real issue. (That US healthcare is broken in general, with private insurers leading the charge.)




To bring it all back around, this is why I’m antsy to get a job line up as soon as possible. If this clown is considered a major player in our economic recovery, then somebody had better cue The Presidents of the USA, because we’re not gonna make it.

Entry 68: All Summer In a Day

There’s a fantastic Ray Bradbury story called All Summer in a Day about a class of schoolchildren on Venus, where it rains all day every day, and the sun only shines for two hours once every seven years. Right now, I feel like one of the children in the story, as it’s been almost a nonstop downpour for the last two days and forecasted to only get worse. Tomorrow is a holiday because it’s the queen’s birthday, or some other such nonsense, and there was talk of doing something fun, like visiting a national park, but the weather has pretty much put the kibosh on all that.



So, instead, I’m cooped up in my apartment, thinking about my wedding in August, and getting cold feet. Not in the figurative sense, I don’t have any apprehension about the wedding. My feet are literally cold right now. Nothing can warm them up. I put on the thickest socks I own and they are still cold. I put them in front of the heater and turned it up so hot that it singed my leg hairs, and still they are cold. Maybe it’s the way I sit – with my feet up on the coffee table or maybe it’s just sitting too much period – it’s effecting my circulation. I’ll try moving around a bit more.

Actually, I’ve been trying to be less stagnant in general. I heard a piece on NPR about how bad prolonged stretches of sitting are for you, which is unfortunate, because I, like many others, basically spend all day sitting. I’m trying to move around more during the day, but it’s hard, when you work on a computer. Whenever they do bits like this on the radio, they always offer wildly unrealistic advice, “Try to get up and walk around for ten minutes every hour.” Right, I can afford to cut my production at work by 17%. No problem.

Anyway, last night I went over to my friend F’s condo. His cousin D came up from Sydney to visit for the long weekend, and she brought with her a guy whose name (and first initial) escape me at the moment. The guy is her cousin, but not F’s cousin, because it’s on the other side of the family. A few others came over, and we had ourselves a rockin’ little get-together. El vino did flow.

For some reason, we watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and by watched, I mean, somebody put it on in the background while we talked. I’d forgotten how terrible that movie is. I just don’t understand the attraction. Well, it does have a young hot Susan Sarandon running around in a bra for most of it, but other than that it’s just a bunch of inane madcap shite. When it ended, D’s cousin said, “You could have ended that movie at any point during the last hour, and it would have made just as much sense.”



Embarrassingly, The Rocky Horror Picture Show is the longest-running continuous release in movie history. It literally hasn’t left the theaters since it opened in 1975. I say “embarrassingly”, because we, the movie-going public should all feel great shame in this. All the great movies in the last 40 years, and this piece of garbage is Cal Ripken? Of course, its run is due to its huge cult following. Weirdos People go to midnight showings and call out rehearsed lines and act along with it.

Seeing Tim Curry reminded me of the movie Clue. I mentioned that last night, and nobody knew what I was talking about. I then explained that it was a movie based on the board game Clue, and still nobody knew what I was talking about. I then explained the board game and somebody said, “That’s called Cluedo, not Clue.” Apparently, outside of North America they call it Cluedo. On Wikipedia, it says that Cluedo is a portmanteau of “clue” and “ludo”, which means “I, play” in Latin. Also, in the non-North American version, he’s Reverend Green, not Mr. Green, and they call the wrench the spanner. Also, over here, they call French fries chips!



Wow! I just took a peek outside and it has temporarily stopped raining. Of course, it’s dark and cold and windy, and will probably start raining again in five minutes, but it’s something. Actually, there is one advantage to it raining all weekend -- it gives me less incentive to procrastinate on a seminar I have to prepare. I have a series of on-line interviews lined up next week with a company in the States, and as part of this, I have to give a remote seminar.

I have the slides mostly prepared. I just need to practice it and work out the kinks. I’ll probably go over it once tonight and a few times tomorrow. The real deal is on Wednesday, and due to the time difference, I’m starting at 11pm, my time. Good thing I’m more of a night person than a morning person.

So, I’m going to end this entry with a High Fidelity-esque list. The top ten rain-themed songs. Originally I was only going to do five, but there were too many good ones.

10. November Rain, Guns N’ Roses. This one I like ironically. In fact, that’s the only way I can enjoy Guns N’ Roses period. I can’t take them seriously as musicians, especially Axl. “Oh… everybody needs some time all al-o-o-ne…” So profound.

9. Blame It On the Rain, Milli Vanilli. Speaking of liking something ironically. I always preferred Girl, I’m Gonna Miss You, but that one doesn’t fit the theme.



8. I Can See Clearly Now, Johnny Nash. The second best singer with the first name Johnny and a last name that rhymes with dash. Still, he’s got a cool voice and an even cooler outfit. I think I know where Eddie Murphy got the idea for his suit in Delirious.

7. Here Comes That Rainbow Again, Johnny Cash. The best singer with the first name Johnny and a last name that rhymes with dash. His voice is otherworldly. He could sing about killing babies, while waiving a swastika flag, and I’d still enjoy it. I recent heard him do a fantastic version of Neil Diamond’s Solitary Man.

6. Box of Rain, The Grateful Dead. The opening song on the album American Beauty. I went to two Dead shows in high school (real Dead shows, not the fake post-Jerry Garcia ones). One of them was in Eugene, Oregon. It must have been June 18, 1994, because it was the day after the OJ-White-Bronco chase fiasco. Wow, 17 years ago. I’m getting old.


5. The Rainbow Connection, Kermit The Frog. If a song could make me cry (which it can’t), this one would do it. In second grade music class, we sang a bunch of songs from The Muppet Movie, and now I get really nostalgic whenever I hear them.

4. When the Levee Breaks, Led Zeppelin. Best song off Lep Zeppelin IV, hands down. I always thought IV was overrated. It might be the worst of the numbered albums. Actually, it might be their worst album period. But, it’s Zeppelin, so that’s still pretty damn good.


3. Fool In the Rain, Led Zeppelin. Speaking of Zeppelin. This is a great song of theirs that never got much radio play. I used to have a huge poster of Led Zeppelin in my room. I think it was on my ceiling.

2. Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Creedence Clearwater Revival. I used to rock CCR’s greatest hits with my friend JW in high school, so any song off that album reminds me of going over to his place back in the day. His mom ran a daycare, so his house often had all these snot-nosed kids running around. We didn’t hang out there much.

1. No Rain, Blind Melon. I wrestled in high school, and after practice I would frequently give a ride home to this black guy on our team. He used to always razz me about my music, because I listened to Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction, and he listened to Dre and Snoop. One time, I put on a mixed tape and No Rain came on. “I know this song,” he said. “This is that bee song – that chubby bee song… It’s alright.” Closest I ever came to approval. And so, I leave you with the greatest rained-themed song of all time – that chubby bee song.

Entry 67: Touch Me I'm Sick

I’m not feeling great today – a little sick and not sick in a good way, like this Tom Chambers dunk.



I went out on Thursday night for dinner and some beers and woke up yesterday feeling like horse manure. I chalked it up to a hangover, even though the amount I drank shouldn’t have warranted the condition I was in. The day went on, and I couldn’t shake it, and at night I started feeling a sore throat coming on. I woke up this morning and the sore throat had intensified and my head was really cloudy – the usual symptoms of the common cold for me.

I hate the incipient stages of a cold. You know it’s coming, but there is nothing you can do, but wait it out. Everybody has their own remedies, but let’s be honest, nothing works but time and rest. I used to swear by zinc, but not so much anymore.


It’s the first time I’ve been sick in Australia which is good. I used to rarely get sick (about one bad cold a year), until I moved to the DC-area where I seemed to get sick much more frequently. Maybe all the acrimony in the air from the two political parties running our country into the ground actually has a physical effect on the city’s inhabitants. (That’s right, I’m not afraid to stick it to the man on this blog.)

Not a great time to get sick either (but is there ever?). Outside of my usual work load, I have two papers to review, and a presentation to prepare. Nothing is due immediately, but if don’t get started now, I’m going to be in a big pinch in a week.

Anyway…

So, we developed a little ant problem in our kitchen. They’re those super tiny ants, about the size of a poppy seed. Before S left (oh yeah, S, left Australia a few days ago, for good, she’s in Bangladesh for a week on a work assignment and then going to India, a less self-absorbed man probably would have mentioned this earlier) she bought some traps for them. I set them up, and they seem to have worked. I haven’t seen a single ant today.

You’ve probably seen the traps I’m referring to. They are those flat disc-shaped thingies. Supposedly, the ants enter the traps and carry the poisonous bait back to the nest where it wipes out the entire colony. I was quite skeptical, but hey, the results are looking pretty good.

[Yes, yes, carry the poison back to the nest.]

The morning before I set the traps the printer at work jammed. We had about ten people trying to figure out how to fix it. We tried reading the manual, but it was so unhelpful, we gave up on it (eventually we “fixed” the problem by canceling all the jobs, unplugging it and plugging it back in).

When I got home and went to set the traps, I read the instructions first, and thought that there couldn’t be a bigger example of contrast in instruction-giving than the one between the printer and the ant traps. The ant traps gave me 100-word point-by-point detailed directions, when all they needed to say was “Put the traps where the ants are”. (Step 1: Open this box, and with your dominate hand remove the contents. Step 2: With your eyes, visually process the ants, and with your brain ascertain the general area with the highest level of antlike activity. Step 3: Place the first trap between your thumb and your fore finger…)

And just in case you can’t read, or need further explanation of the traps purpose, they provide you with a four-panel visual description. In the first panel, there is an ant and a trap. Curved arcs are being emitted from the trap indicating that the ant is attracted to the bait. In the second panel, the ant is in the trap taking the bait. In the third panel, the ant is carrying the bait. Presumably, it has just arrived at the nest as there are many other ants in the frame. In the fourth panel, all the ants are upside down. It works!

In other news, another big-time college football program has been caught turning a blind-eye to improper benefits being received by their players. This time it’s Ohio State (their coach Jim Tressel resigned earlier this week), but it could have been any large program. The college football (and basketball) system is a sham, plain and simple. It’s been this way for at least 30 years. Everybody knows it, everybody says it, but still it goes on.

["The Sweater Vest" won't be leading the scarlet and gray any longer.]

And why does it go on? Because powerful people make money off it. To quote Upton Sinclair, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” A lot of people make a lot of money off the current system, because they get highly skilled labor at a ridiculously reduced cost. The players (especially the stars) are the ones doing the bulk of the important work and they get paid almost nothing, literally. (South Park recently had a funny episode on this topic, in which they imply the athletes are “slaves”. The clip below is hilarious.)



The most common defense for the current system is that it’s not perfect and needs some tweaking, but a wide-scale overhaul that involved paying the players just wouldn’t work. It wouldn’t work because [insert bullshit reason 1], [insert bullshit reason 2], and [insert bullshit reason 3]. I completely reject the notion that paying the players wouldn’t work. In fact, I argue that there is already a working model in place, the graduate student model.

For many graduate programs (such as mathematics), the graduate school will give its students a tuition remission and a living stipend. Literally, they pay you to go school. They do this for two reasons: 1) the grad students do work (lecturing, grading, tutoring, etc.), 2) they want to entice the best grad students to come to their program to build prestige (and perhaps a future donor base). These are basically the same reasons why a university recruits star athletes, they do work and they help build prestige, so why would this type of system not work for college athletics?

Now, not all athletes are worth the same amount to the university, and this is the same as with grad students. The “star” students get better packages. Some students have to do a lot of work for a little pay. Some students have to do little work for a lot of pay (relatively speaking, of course). Some students don’t get any pay, and in fact, they actually have to pay the school tuition (these are the “walk-on” grad students).

It’s up to the program managers to decide what’s important and who they want to spend their money on. This is based largely on the budget and the perceived worth of the grad students, just like it could be for athletes. Swimmers and field hockey players wouldn’t get the same packages as the football players, and third string fullbacks wouldn’t get the same packages as starting quarterbacks.

It drives me crazy when people use the there-is-no-way-to-determine-which-athletes-are-worth-what argument to defend the status quo in college sports. There is a way. It’s called the market. Open up the market, and universities will quickly learn what the players are worth to them. Those who manage the market smartly will have successful programs, those who don’t, won’t, just like almost every other business in the US (and college football/basketball is absolutely a business).

Probably, there once was a time when college athletics was a relatively fair and equitable arrangement for the players, but it simply isn’t anymore. It’s completely unfair, in fact, I would say immoral, even, to give a minuscule slice of the pie to the group who deserves the biggest slice, especially, when this group is largely composed of young men who don’t come from any means to begin with. Sure, some players will play professionally and make millions of dollars anyway, but there are about 120 Division I football schools, of which around 60 are in a “power conference”. The NFL has 32 teams. You can do the math on that one. Not everybody who is helping to sellout 80,000 seat stadiums six times a year and move millions of dollars in memorabilia annually is cashing in professionally. Just pay the players already.

Well, I certainly spilled more ink on that subject than I intended to, but so be it. I can’t think of anything else to write about, and I really should do a little paper reading and then try to rest and recover, so I guess that’s it for this entry.

I leave you with my favorite Mudhoney song. It's particularly topical today.