(This might interest) Maybe Just Me…

“In the old days, parents thought of kids like waffles,” says William Damon, director of the Stanford University Center on Adolescence. “The first couple might not turn out just right, but you could always make more.

wow… hahah… so funny, so sad, so true…
Letting Go

the new graffiti? jet set radio! (that’s right SET, the original, not the jet GRIND radio we got in the states, and not the jet set radio future on xbox… the original!)

Another difference is that the new subway graffiti usually looks like a crude scrawl, rather than the detailed writing or representational art that was common in the graffiti of years past and has shown up again on the sides of buildings from Williamsburg to the South Bronx.

that’s just making a relatively baseless distinction. yeah the graffiti of days past was more colorful, but that’s because they were using paint or markers. in the pic in this article, the new etched tags don’t look substantially different to tags in marker or paint.

a study of vernacular or lexicon as you will

this is a totally unscientific study, if you can call it that, about what people call “soft drinks” or “sodas” etc. i grew up in TX, but in a military town. I grew up saying coke, now I say soda. according to this site soda is said in the county i grew up by about 26% of the people. the change for me happened when i went to college in the midatlantic.

who gives nicknames?

an nytimes article about nicknames. a few things: (1) i don’t think i’ve EVER met anyone (not that i travel in the most digital of circles) that has had a nicknamed based on their IM or email handle.
(2) i don’t care if ppl are starting to use their IM or email handle as their nicknames, giving yourself a nickname is just utter crap.

Ron Mueck

this guy makes statues that are INCREDIBLY (why don’t i use the formatting tools available to me? i don’t know) life-like. it is insane!

CNN.com - Study: College students lack literacy for complex tasks - Jan 20, 2006

I think they are just idiots. And I think it goes back to high school. I like that they mention college students are really good at using searches and using information (text information) they find. Go GOOGLE!!!

So instead of studying (which I will do as soon as I’m done eating lunch), I’m watching TV. And flipping around I stopped at Celebrity Fit Club. And one of the people (Jeff Connally or whatever, the guy from Grease) had some drug problems and was brought into see Dr. Drew Pinski in an emergency session.

So here’s the thing… is Dr. Drew the ONLY doctor in the country that you can call Dr. [insert first name here] and still take him seriously? Like if you go to a doc and he/she is like “Call me Dr. Bobb(y/i)” and the first name is a full name, can you really take that doc seriously? I couldn’t. But Dr. Drew seems to not suffer that problem.

CNN.com - Baltimore surprised to be ‘fittest city’ - Jan 6, 2006

houston is no longer the fattest city in the country… those porkers in chicago are! houston dropped from fattest to 5th fattest… that’s progress!

baltimore went from 25th fattest to fittest city in one year somehow or other…

i’ve never lived out west, but i am surprised that LA and long beach, CA both made top 10 fattest cities…

Banished Words List :: 2006

i didn’t read the list, but the left nav bar on the site also talks about “unicorn hunters,” about unicorn hunters, regulations for unicorn hunters, and unicorn hunter licenses. lake superior state university… umm, yeah…

CNN.com - College Board mulls length of SAT - Dec 16, 2005

Seriously, I understand there’s a whole new section than when I took the exam, but I still think the youth of today are being coddled. Is there really a need to make the SAT shorter? Are the kids of today that sensitive that they require this?

This is a cover shot from a community college newspaper. As you can see from the pic, the headline is “Goals gone wild” and the caption reads “Four good reasons to support…”

This from the midwest. The community college is in KANSAS. I don’t know. I’m always torn on these things. I don’t know enough about feminist studies, but part of me wants to say that women who choose this sort of thing (or even more risque things like Girls Gone Wild or stripping or porn) are entitled to make their decisions and some of them truly feel empowered to make the choice. But the whole degradation of women, objectification of women argument is so very strong. Even if women choose that path and it empowers them individually, what does it do on a grander scale?

Regardless, I’m surprised that this cover shot was actually published, community college paper or not.

What Lurks in Its Soul?

you might need to register to view the article (or use a bugmenot), but more than the interesting google stuff, what picques my interest is the google life. the three free squares a day, the dental/medical center, the free time, the “fun” stuff, the wifi buses… it’s like the whole blackberry thing. is the world moving to a non-stop work environment? is there soon coming a time when people are never not working? is this a desirable thing? or do the blurring of the lines make it okay to work that much because you have perks to make it more tolerable? i don’t think, as much as i would love my dream job (whatever it is), i’d want to be tethered to it 90% of my day.

there’s also an article in the nytimes (i’ll post a link, if i bother to go back and find it) about how a lot of people are having meetings at the gym now (rather than dinner and drinks) because it’s healthier, etc, but it’s just another example of work encroaching on another personal time.

HoustonChronicle.com - FEMA to limit debit card program to Texas shelters

This morning, U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s visit to the Reliant Park this offered him a glimpse of what it’s like to be living in shelter.
While on the tour of a shelter with top administration officials from Washington, including U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao and U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, DeLay stopped to chat with three young boys resting on cots.
The congressman likened their stay to being at camp and asked, “Now tell me the truth boys, is this kind of fun?'’
They nodded yes, but looked perplexed.

yes, fun… just like camp… yeah…

MSN Money - Top 10 priciest colleges … and the cheapest

gwu, my alma mater, 4th highest private school tuition. FOURTH!!! yeah, i definitely feel i got my money’s worth. or not…

These men want their foreskins back - Men’s Sexual Health Guide - MSNBC.com

umm, i mean, i don’t know. it’s very much interesting to me what little things (well not little to them) bother people about themselves to such a large degree when they are kids.