Wow, my 200th entry. I thought about honoring the occasion with a "clip show entry" were I post excerpts from my favorite entries of the past, but that seemed like too much work. And I don't really like clip shows. They always seem like a cop out. Plus, there isn't really anything special about a 200th entry, other than it means I've been at this blogging thing for a while (three years and two months), but in that way, 200 isn't indistinguishable from any of its neighboring entries. 200 does have two zeros at the end, but if we like zeros so much, we might as well just count in binary. In that case, 256 would be the next big one, Entry 100000000.
Anyway, I took a long nap today, and it messed me up. A 20-minute power nap I can handle, but I really don't like going into a multiple-hour deep sleep in the middle of the day. It never makes me feel refreshed. It just discombobulates me and makes me feel like I wasted my day. Today, however, it was probably the lesser of two evils. The little guy got me up early and wouldn't let me hit the figurative snooze button as he sometimes does. He was in "Look, I'm not going to back to sleep anytime soon, so you might as well get that coffee going now" mode. I felt like a zombi all morning, so when he went down for his afternoon nap around 1:00, I followed suit. Problem is I didn't get up until 4:00. Now I have that logy, post-nap ennui. Oh well...
If you're wondering, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie was a major league baseball player from 1896-1916. As you can see from his baseball card, he was also called Larry Lajoie. Somewhere I have this baseball card (a reprint, not an original, which would be worth some serious coin), and as a kid I thought the Larry written in parentheses was an unusual pronunciation* of his last name, so for the longest time I called him Napoleon Larry. Nap was quite good, one of the greatest second basemen of all-time. He was so good that his team, the Cleveland Bronchos, actually called themselves the "Cleveland Naps" for over a decade (The Seattle Felixes?). After Larry left the team they rebranded as the Indians, their name to this day.
Speaking of Indians, this comic brought a smile to my face. I mean, as much as genocide can make somebody smile.
Speaking of Indians, the other type of Indians, a woman of South Indian descent was recently named Miss America. As I said on Facebook, if I cared about the Miss America Pageant I would think this was really cool. S is of South Indian lineage, so I'm somewhat familiar with the different peoples of the region. The new Miss America is named Nina Davuluri, and she was born in Syracuse, NY to Telugu immigrants. Telugu is closely related to Kannada, which is what S's parents are. They can actually speak Telugu, but S and her sister can only really speak Kannada. Or so is my understanding. I can't speak any of it, so I'm not 100% sure how it all works out. S actually lived in Syracuse for a long time, and she is very beautiful, so she has other things in common with Miss America.
Of course, after Davuluri won, the Internet explored with racist tweets or at least stories about racist tweets. It's tough to really get a gauge on this whole racism thing. I mean, how representative of the general population are the tweeters in the article? It's not hard to find a handful of idiots voicing their opinions online. Porn and idiots, that's what the Internet has in spades.
In general, I tend to have a Carollian mindset that there aren't actually all that many racists in this country, but there are a lot of assholes. I suspect many people tweeting racist shit would never dream of saying such things to her face, and probably a lot of them have no problem with the brown people they encounter in their everyday lives. It's more just they want to put somebody down who's in the spotlight. If she was fat, they'd make fun of her fatness (of course then she wouldn't be Miss America); if she was dumb, they'd make fun of her stupidity. But she's beautiful and apparently smart, so they have to find something else. In this case, her race. Or maybe I'm completely naive when it comes to race, and we really are still a largely racist country (ahem... The South), who have legit problems with non-white people succeeding (ahem... The South). I don't know. Whatever the case, I'm moving on, because I spent three paragraphs on Miss America, and I don't even like beauty pageants. I'm kinda with the woman who wrote this article.
To completely change the topic, I got a new iPhone. Not the latest model that you had to stand in line for hours at 3 a.m. to get. But the one right before that one. (I think, I don't actually know what model is what.) I didn't want to get a new one. I try to staunchly fight against the push to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. For one thing, it's usually unnecessary, in that the amount of utility I derive from a new phone is trivial. For another, there's a slight learning curve with something new. Why do you want to spend your free time constantly learning how to use devices that are almost just as good as your old devices? I mean, if you're really into gadgets and like that sort of thing, by all means, but for a typical non-tech schlub like myself, I don't always need the latest and greatest. However, my screen finally cracked on my old iPhone, so when we got a new plan, I made the change. My new phone is lighter and longer, which I like, but the battery is way worse. That's another annoying part about upgrading: when you like a certain feature on the older model a lot, and then they get rid of that feature. In this case, I'd much rather have longer battery life than a slightly bigger screen. Oh well. It's just a phone.
All right that's it. Until next time...
*What happened to the second "o" in pronunciation? It must be in the same place as the first "i" in explanation.
Anyway, I took a long nap today, and it messed me up. A 20-minute power nap I can handle, but I really don't like going into a multiple-hour deep sleep in the middle of the day. It never makes me feel refreshed. It just discombobulates me and makes me feel like I wasted my day. Today, however, it was probably the lesser of two evils. The little guy got me up early and wouldn't let me hit the figurative snooze button as he sometimes does. He was in "Look, I'm not going to back to sleep anytime soon, so you might as well get that coffee going now" mode. I felt like a zombi all morning, so when he went down for his afternoon nap around 1:00, I followed suit. Problem is I didn't get up until 4:00. Now I have that logy, post-nap ennui. Oh well...
If you're wondering, Napoleon "Nap" Lajoie was a major league baseball player from 1896-1916. As you can see from his baseball card, he was also called Larry Lajoie. Somewhere I have this baseball card (a reprint, not an original, which would be worth some serious coin), and as a kid I thought the Larry written in parentheses was an unusual pronunciation* of his last name, so for the longest time I called him Napoleon Larry. Nap was quite good, one of the greatest second basemen of all-time. He was so good that his team, the Cleveland Bronchos, actually called themselves the "Cleveland Naps" for over a decade (The Seattle Felixes?). After Larry left the team they rebranded as the Indians, their name to this day.
Speaking of Indians, this comic brought a smile to my face. I mean, as much as genocide can make somebody smile.
Speaking of Indians, the other type of Indians, a woman of South Indian descent was recently named Miss America. As I said on Facebook, if I cared about the Miss America Pageant I would think this was really cool. S is of South Indian lineage, so I'm somewhat familiar with the different peoples of the region. The new Miss America is named Nina Davuluri, and she was born in Syracuse, NY to Telugu immigrants. Telugu is closely related to Kannada, which is what S's parents are. They can actually speak Telugu, but S and her sister can only really speak Kannada. Or so is my understanding. I can't speak any of it, so I'm not 100% sure how it all works out. S actually lived in Syracuse for a long time, and she is very beautiful, so she has other things in common with Miss America.
Of course, after Davuluri won, the Internet explored with racist tweets or at least stories about racist tweets. It's tough to really get a gauge on this whole racism thing. I mean, how representative of the general population are the tweeters in the article? It's not hard to find a handful of idiots voicing their opinions online. Porn and idiots, that's what the Internet has in spades.
In general, I tend to have a Carollian mindset that there aren't actually all that many racists in this country, but there are a lot of assholes. I suspect many people tweeting racist shit would never dream of saying such things to her face, and probably a lot of them have no problem with the brown people they encounter in their everyday lives. It's more just they want to put somebody down who's in the spotlight. If she was fat, they'd make fun of her fatness (of course then she wouldn't be Miss America); if she was dumb, they'd make fun of her stupidity. But she's beautiful and apparently smart, so they have to find something else. In this case, her race. Or maybe I'm completely naive when it comes to race, and we really are still a largely racist country (ahem... The South), who have legit problems with non-white people succeeding (ahem... The South). I don't know. Whatever the case, I'm moving on, because I spent three paragraphs on Miss America, and I don't even like beauty pageants. I'm kinda with the woman who wrote this article.
To completely change the topic, I got a new iPhone. Not the latest model that you had to stand in line for hours at 3 a.m. to get. But the one right before that one. (I think, I don't actually know what model is what.) I didn't want to get a new one. I try to staunchly fight against the push to upgrade, upgrade, upgrade. For one thing, it's usually unnecessary, in that the amount of utility I derive from a new phone is trivial. For another, there's a slight learning curve with something new. Why do you want to spend your free time constantly learning how to use devices that are almost just as good as your old devices? I mean, if you're really into gadgets and like that sort of thing, by all means, but for a typical non-tech schlub like myself, I don't always need the latest and greatest. However, my screen finally cracked on my old iPhone, so when we got a new plan, I made the change. My new phone is lighter and longer, which I like, but the battery is way worse. That's another annoying part about upgrading: when you like a certain feature on the older model a lot, and then they get rid of that feature. In this case, I'd much rather have longer battery life than a slightly bigger screen. Oh well. It's just a phone.
All right that's it. Until next time...
*What happened to the second "o" in pronunciation? It must be in the same place as the first "i" in explanation.
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