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Thursday, March 20, 2003

A few small life lessons acquired yesterday evening:

--If you're going to play the War Coverage Drinking Game, be thoughtful about the ground rules. Setting it up as "Take one drink every time they go back to a set shot of that weird triple-gothic-arch thingie in the traffic median" means you will get schnockered far too quickly. Try instead, perhaps, "Take one drink every time at least four stations are simultaneously showing the same set shot of that mosque with the weird phallic tower."

--If you are doing the War Coverage Drinking Game (with whatever rules), do *not*, after a few hours of play, decide to use the great big very sharp chef's knife to cut the plastic wrap off a slippery block of cheese.

--If you do decide to mess around with the great big very sharp chef's knife, take a moment first to lay out some bandaids, unwrapped and with the backing peeled off, because it is extremely difficult to unwrap/unpeel standard-issue bandaids with blood gushing from one's index finger.

And two questions:

--What the hell *was* that weird triple-gothic-arch thingie in the traffic median, anyway?

--Was I completely woozy from Jameson's and blood loss, or was that actually the contemptible Oliver North broadcasting live! from the front lines! with a gas mask and everything! on Fox News last night? I mean, it's not like I had any respect for Fox News to begin with, but *that's* just ... despicable.

Posted @ 02:44 PM CST [Link]4 comments

Wednesday, March 19, 2003

One upbeat piece of news on an otherwise grim day -- the Senate voted against the provision that would have allowed oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. I'm pleased to see that Norm Coleman, the guy who replaced Wellstone as Minnesota senator, ended up breaking party ranks and bucking considerable pressure to vote against it.

And the bridges downtown have been reopened--apparently the scare was groundless. I have handed in my idiotic report, and am now going to go home, drink, and watch the war begin.

Posted @ 07:29 PM CST [Link]1 Comment

Most ill-conceived headline of the day, from www.startribune.com, on a story about how US citizens need to be mentally prepared for the inevitability of battle casualities:

"White House Readies America for Death"

Uhh, yeah. Conjures up a nice visual of GWB laying the nation out in its coffin. Which -- OK, let's avoid the obvious jokes here. [note: at some point after I began this entry, the headline was rewritten. Heh.]

Yanking my attention away from the headlines, I found considerable amusement in "The 101 Dumbest Moments in Business, 2003 Edition." Harry Potter fans will perhaps especially enjoy # 21.

I am (obviously) spending most of my day messing around on-line, trying to avoid writing my Annual Report of Activities, which is a deeply annoying task at the best of times, but particularly asinine when there is not going to be any money for raises for the next few years; when our continued employment is rather iffy, in fact.

And I'm taking long pauses to stare out the window. It's spring break week here, so the campus is almost deserted, which adds to the sense of unreality, existential fracture, adriftness that seems to characterize my current life.

My golly. They've closed down one of the main downtown bridges, due to unspecified "security concerns." Well, that's just...neat. OK, I should just shut down the goddamned web browser and try to get some work done. Especially since this idiotic report is due at 4.

Posted @ 03:53 PM CST [Link]2 comments