Stranger Than Fiction

I saw this movie on dvd for the first time. I definitely liked this movie. But it also brought to mind an article I wrote a few years ago. The article was about when I was writing an important scene in The Teddy Bear Conspiracy where I had to kill off a major character who had kind of taken over as its own entity in the writing of the story. For those write, this is understood as a sensation where a character literally takes over the writing for you, so much that you feel that you are just jotting down what that character is doing or saying rather than being the writer yourself. This was the same thing that happened to me when I was writing about a character named Tina. I had done everything I could to avoid killing this character, but it was so necessary for the story, that I had no choice but to kill her off. And then I did. It was a few minutes after writing that tragic scene that there was a knock on my door from downstairs (my writing office/bedroom was on the second floor of the house back then). I went to answer the door and saw some woman I didn't recognize through the aperature in the door. I asked who it was. She said, "Tina". Well, I kind of went numb right then and there. I asked her to repeat, but she said "Tina." Slowly, I opened the door and this woman stood there and said, "I've been trying to get ahold of you for awhile." Well, right before I freaked out, she explained that she was the previous occupant of my house, and she wanted to know if any mail had come for her that hadn't forwarded through the mail.

It was a big laugh later, and an article as well, but I was certainly reminded of this situation when watching this very good movie.

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Completed moving

Moving is never a fun thing, but the process is finally completed. The place I'm living now is okay, not great, but okay. I have cable and Internet finally up and running. Now I'm just looking for a solid job.

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In the process of moving

I really hate moving. It's so much work, and I have to be done by tomorrow, and I don't think I'm more than 20 percent completed. I got out the really big items, like the futon, my entertainment center, and one of my bookshelves, but there's still SO MUCH stuff to go. Anyway.

As things between R. and I didn't continue, M. and I are probably going to get together this weekend. I finally have time, and we haven't actually spent any quality time together since I've been back. We'll see what happens. If anything, I always enjoy her company.

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Class finally over for the year

It was a long year, but the semester is finally over. Now I need to focus on finding a job.

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Still trying to find a job

I decided to lower my level of search and applied for a job as a library assistant on campus. I can't emphasize how much I need a job, and it's not getting any better. Well, after dealing with the infamous "customer service" of human resources ("You know you are supposed to make two copies of your application to bring in. It is written somewhere in the nonsensical instructions we include with the applications."). Anyway, so I submitted it.

I also completed two applications with Stanislaus County for a fraud investigator and an elections specialist. I'm going to start avoiding any type of application that involves sending it over the Internet. I'm coming under a strong impression that no one takes those seriously, almost as if sending an application online is like saying you're dating someone online. No one really takes you seriously.

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Completing projects

I just finished my rhetorical criticism paper, 72 Hours of Rhetoric: Narratives and Counter-Narratives During the August 1991 Soviet Coup. It clocked in at 42 pages, and let's just say that I'm so glad it's finally finished. This is one of those projects where I put in the extra work I intended to do, and I'm pretty happy with the results. It also contributes a bit to the discipline in a direction I hadn't intended to take, specifically on my second research question of how dissemination of a message can affect the message itself.

This leaves my final exam for my Communication in Learning Settings course, which is due on Wednesday, at the same time that my final grades are due for my class I teach.

I'm still needing to find a job, and I just looked at my bank account balance, and well, I need a job.

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Collapsed bridges in San Francisco Bay Area

You would think that with this tragedy (that fortunately killed no one that we know of), Bay Area transit leaders would start thinking about how to do things better. But no, instead of actually dealing with some of the ridiculousness that has existed in the Bay Area for years, we just hide it under the carpet again.

Case in point. One of my oldest pet peeves in San Francisco is Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART), a train system that runs throughout a good deal of the Bay Area. If you're advocating rapid transit rather than cars, this should be the most logical way of pushing this agenda. Instead, this organization is run by people who have no concept of how to make it more attractive to the public, which is why we have so many damn cars running the commutes every day. An example: When the Bay Bridge leaders decided to raise the price of the toll on the bridge by a dollar, BART, which was being targeted as something that could fix the commute, decided to raise its fares the same day. Right now, if you don't work a very lucrative job in San Francisco, taking BART every day is prohibitive. Parking is practically impossible to find so that you can park and ride it. And they don't run enough trains to handle the influx of more customers.

So, the Bay Area has a traffic meltdown the other day, and this should get people to start thinking about how to create an alternative traffic flow that DOES NOT INVOLVE ADDING MORE CARS TO THE ROAD. Instead, I recently heard that a solution is to raise tolls, and possibly the price of BART.

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Washington's Political Judgment Day

Democrats in Congress have managed to push forth their Iraq spending bill that was, as expected, vetoed by President Bush. Now, the ball falls back in the Democrat court to see what will happen next.

Well, a lot of things are happening right now that probably wouldn't be understood on a surface level. Sure, if you look at things from just a simplistic perspective, it's a roadblock, the typical gridlock of Congressional issues, which means one side is going to have to blink before the other side triumphs. The Democrats will either put forth a similar bill demanding withdrawal time limits, or they will send Bush a stripped bill that gives Bush exactly what Bush wants. The Democrats will cry that they are responding to the voters who put them in power while the Republicans will whine that the Democrats aren't "supporting the troops". So, who is really right, and what does this sort of thing REALLY mean?

Well, avoiding simplistic us versus them rhetoric, this is a deciding moment for the Democrats. If they hold their ground, they prove to the American people that they are acting in the interests that put them in power. If they back down, they will show the American people that when push came to shove, you can really push and shove Democrats around. This means that Democrats actually have to take political chances here that aren't going to be popular no matter what they do, in order to prove to their power base that they are the party that supports the majority. Historically, especially when considering how the Democrats have practically given President Bush everything he wanted as the ashes were still settling after 911, Democrats tend to cave in to demands that make them feel they might be considered less valiant than the Republicans, who wave the flag and say really neat things like "We support the troops" regardless of how much they actually do support the troops but in fact support legislation and the president that thinks of the actual soldiers as an afterthought. The reality is that they support the war, not the troops. But although that sounds like an endorsement of the Democrats, it's not; the Democrats have been supporting the war all along; the Republicans just get more mileage out of it because it's easier to make Democrats look like wimpy hairdressers instead of he-man soldiers of the 300 Spartan army with the six pack abs and swords the size of small SUVs.

So, what does the Democratic Party need to do in order to come out ahead here? Do what they won't normally do. Stand behind their convictions and start attacking pro-war people as being just that, pro war, not pro troops. There's a rhetorical disconnect the Democrats keep hoping the American people (who vote more for American Idol than for actual elections) will somehow connect, that by stating they are "for" the troops because they want to bring them home, they are more supportive of the troops than are the Republicans. Americans aren't going to make that connection because it requires them to put two and two together themselves. Instead, pundits like Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are going to tell them two and two together makes three, and if they repeat it over and over again, the American people are going to continue to believe it because they don't make the connections for themselves. The ones that do are out there protesting and being told they're hating America by those guys that tell you two and two makes three. Who can you then trust? Someone who teaches you to add (although incorrectly, but who is going to know that?) or someone who wants you to do the addition work for you when the pundits are sitting next to you with their papers exposed for you to copy, and you realize that the teacher is their dad, who is going to be grading the test anyway?

So, the chances of the Democrats actually standing their ground are minimal. Instead, expect to see a lot of the old same as the Democrats try to "regroup" and end up giving President Bush pretty much what he asks for. After all, you're either with him or you're against him, and if you're against him, you hate freedom. And those who hate freedom killed good, loyal Americans on 9/11. So, either side with Bush or be part of those who killed Americans in cold blood.

Yeah, that's how simplistic the arguments are these days. Unfortunately, we're only capable of adding up to three, so this should get by us just as easily.

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