For Thu: Extraneous Scenery Description

Ahh, procrastination. The thing we all claim to hate but we seem to enjoy doing it so much, so much. It’s true though, procrastination often throws us into preposterous situations like starting a 14-page research paper two weeks after it’s due because your professor is starting to put the pieces together and is getting the sneaking suspicion you haven’t actually had mono all this time.

So obviously we need to control our procrastination to some degree. How do we do that? Some people advocate the “Just suck it up and get it done” approach. My response to that is, “Oh! Why thank you! I’ve never thought of that or tried that before because I am both debilitating lazy and stupid.”

These kind of “get it done” people are inclined to quote Abraham Lincoln, who said something about procrastination that I’m going to attempt and paraphrase:

“Don’t put work off until tomorrow, blah blah blah, you have plenty of time to get it done today, some people are convinced I wouldn’t have ended slavery if it weren’t for a specific combination of sociopolitical factors and that makes me feel unappreciated, blah blah, get some stuff done this afternoon so you don’t have to worry about it when you go enjoy a nice night at the theater, blah blah blah, oh no I’ve been shot”

Something like that. Anyway the part that these motivational geniuses seem to leave out is that Abraham Lincoln had the choice of getting stuff done or reading “Hard Times” by Charles Dickens, which is basically 500 pages of the terrible lives of grimy British factory workers with nothing exciting about ghosts or Christmas. Abraham Lincoln did not have three new wall posts on his Facebook profile commenting on those awesome pictures of his Log Cabin Warming Double Kegger, he did not have a Netflix account which required him to finish the disc of Weeds he was watching so he could get Terminator 2 on Blu-Ray, and he didn’t have to deal with the overwhelming temptation to beat that fucking impossible Mario Strikers tournament.

Had we gone back in time and quickly given Abraham Lincoln an original Gameboy with Tetris, he probably would have spent the two months playing it and then, upon the Gameboy not working, used the rest of his live trying to reverse-engineer the double-A battery instead of preserving the union. This would probably have gone for any of those highly motivated historical figures of the past, so they can stop blabbering at us with their pithy quotes.

The key here is we’ve got a lot of amazing distractions in our modern world, and it’s unlikely we’re going to wake up one day and say they’re never again going to keep us from doing that stupid project on research methods we’re not ever going to use. For most of us, that’s just not going to happen.

The key is to build a big pyramid of procrastination. The thing you want to the do the least, like your massive research project, is at the top. Ideally it shouldn’t be due for a long time. Then you can put slightly less unappealing tasks below that, like catching up on notes for a class, or working on a homework assignment, or making sure Colin Jones doesn’t get on your ass for not writing something inane on your blog.

This way, as long as make sure you’re doing something productive everyday, you’ll reap the rewards through the pyramid of procrastination. As long as you do a little something each day, you’ll have the satisfaction of accomplishment and procrastination, and eventually you’ll have nothing good left to do but that damn paper.

This is a lot better than just promising yourself that this time you’ll be able to sit down and just get it done, and then spending two hours sending poorly photoshopped bumper sticker pictures to your friends on Facebook. You don't build a pyramid through poor, unfounded resolutions. You build it through measured, disciplined foundation-building. Or slave labor. But that would be wrong, and if you won't take my word for it, then keep that copy of Tetris the hell away from my time machine.

Senior Years

Waking up in Sacramento at noon, things seemed a bit surreal. I had arrived in a state fatigued by driving through the night yet roused by the chemical remnants of a triple-serving Rock Star that had me debating whether I was developing a heart murmur. Or instead, maybe Type-III diabetes, a hipper, more extreme insulin resistance. But I tried to shake myself in consciousness as best I could, with only thirty-six hours in the place closest to my hometown, a place with no good nicknames. Plus a few that make me not want to speak to those who use them. Macramento? Seriously?

The weekend passed with surprising clarity, yet my condition left me still mostly unable to grasp the idea that the freshmen I knew as a senior in high school were now graduating, and performing in their last Jesuit Drama show. Perhaps this is something no amount of sleep can really allow you to comprehend. Rob, Adam and Ben all fit the part though, with even more confidence and skill to back up the talent they had four years ago. In this way seeing them again didn’t feel like years past, when the wise college kids returned home to impart brief wisdom and a couple pats on the back on younger brethren. This time, they showed us the massiveness of what they’d accomplished for themselves in the years they were more or less off our radar. They had all brimmed under the surface, distant but not forgotten, popping up in occasional reminders, nostalgic conversations, and hometown visits. And now, suddenly, they were graduating.

In a world where my everyday mind is gradually forgetting that I was ever not the legal drinking age, this makes me feel, well, old. The men I will always in some way know as freshmen are seniors, the year with which they will always associate me. Yet senior year of high school could not feel many more worlds away. I have accounted for the classes I still need to take, and found I have a little less than half what I had anticipated. Paperwork, bills, errands appear gradually, occasional drops forewarning a flood in future years. And as the graduating freshmen are being asked what colleges they’ve applied, I am being asked, what are you doing with your life?

Luckily, this doesn’t cause much anxiety. I don’t want it to. One lesson I can take from the time my adolescent self spent observing adult conversation: I do not want to be one of those people who talks about how old they are. From what I’ve seen, no amount of extended discussion or unfunny over-the-hill cards from Spencer’s will make the observation of oldness a non-issue. "Haha! Wang-Awake impotence curing novelty gum! For a problem frequently experienced by old people! The knowledge of my correct functioning of brain neurons, allowing the understanding this connection to geriatric stereotypes, makes me feel young again!" I remain skeptical.

So, the feeling remains not anxious, just weird. I am comforted that I have never been happier with an age more than this one, and I think only part is due to the magic of college. I will always fondly look back at being able to sit down a 3pm on a Thursday with a Hot Pocket and Miller Genuine Draft and watch an entire Blu-Ray disc of Weeds, yet I feel confident that I will do my best to make the most of every age. At least until that Type-III diabetes kicks in.

Qualified Refinement

So I really have no idea exactly what I’m going for here. As a fair warning, I am liable to go on serious tangents, mix up three ideas within one paragraph, or in other ways fail to make my point clear or interesting. It’s been awhile since I’ve tried to keep up with writing on my own terms on a regular basis, probably because when I first started out I didn’t have to try. I was a disenfranchised and bored eighth grader who could wildly exceed the expectations of his audience by insulting middle school authority and spelling most things correctly.

I don’t think I genuinely regret letting writing fall by the wayside as that motivation faded over the years. I just plain didn’t feel like doing it, and there were plenty of other things I didn’t feel like doing that were far determinant of my immediate future than trying to think of something good to put on my Livejournal. But now, though perhaps the unavoidable drive to write hasn’t reemerged, I care enough to force myself to see what’s possible.

My grandfather wrote a novel, probably around five years ago, loosely based on his experiences farming outside Sacramento as a young man. Having heard that I was looking at my mom’s copy, my grandpa got me my own for my 20th birthday. Inside the cover, he wrote, “I wish now that I had kept a diary or semi-diary and urge you to do so. There are some gaps in my life now and it would be wonderful to refine those times.”

His note has been resonating with me, especially after moving into my first real apartment, and finding the whole tone of college life shifting. Even if there will inevitably be countless pictures and artifacts from all these years, there are so many feelings and impressions that aren’t captured in all this evidence of my existence. If anything, I’m back writing again for myself. I don’t really know how you, the reader, fall into this. But I didn’t worry about you that much six or seven years ago when I started mashing the keys about wanting to get out of middle school. So I have a feeling the less I worry about you right now, the better. Fair warning.

Stereotypically Published At 1:21 AM

I only get glances of it sometimes, but every once and awhile, when walking past a drunken group on the streets of the apartments, or seeing a collection of empty snack food bags and beer bottles scattered on the coffee table of my apartment, that I really see for a moment how ridiculous and stereotypical college life can seem. When I get up at noon on the weekend, and watch from the couch as my roommates emerge from their respective bedrooms at three in the afternoon, I encounter that weird, thin layer that tries to wrap the college experience into a package and misses so much.

When these stereotypes do jump out at me, as hilarious and unbelievable as they can be, they still seem thin, seem to be missing the point. When, while parking my car, I hear a keg stand being counted out from the balcony of the building across the street, and can’t help but laugh. But these ridiculous scenes blindside me, these scenes that represent how as high schoolers we saw our future lives, I don’t think it’s because our college lives are truly insane and I don’t usually notice. There is just so much surrounding these brief moments, so many different amazing people, so many responsibilities, accomplishments and experiences, that it takes a certain kind of absurd moment to pull all that aside and provide a glimpse at this false college caricature.

It’s not that I feel that college students aren’t given enough credit. I really don’t care what the rest of society has to say about me considering any class or obligation before 11am unpleasantly early. I was forced to go to school at ungodly hours all during adolescence, and the institutions which mandated this paid for it in me being a dick to them. The problem is solved and anyone can say what they want about my sleep patterns, so long as no one tries to wake up at 6:45 am to get ready and go to Winston Churchill middle school ever again.

What I worry about is not that others can’t see past these stereotypes now, but that as I grow older, in my memory these years will be absorbed into a handful of stories and a variety of mental images. I worry that remembering red beer pong cups and beer bottles, sitting on the top of a folding table, sitting on the top of a foosball table, for days on end until anyone decided to clean it up, will stand out among a fuzzy and indistinct recollection of feelings, thoughts, experiences. It may not be so much that I have anxiety about it, I just think it’s odd that picture could end up being a defining image decades down the road, a picture which said more about circumstances than actual experiences.

I have more to say about this, but I need to get up at eight tomorrow. And hopefully decades down the road I will understand that I’m not excited about this for reasons behind the college ID in my wallet that automatically makes a card-carrying lazyass.

The Hills Are Burning

The Obama campaign has reached the point of assured victory, as long as Obama doesn't
suddenly openly support killing puppies and banning chocolate-chip cookies. Even if Hillary insists on finding a way to overturn a pledged delegate lead and risk the implosion of the Democratic Party, enough people in the remaining states will be turned off by her attempts that they will go towards Obama, making the lead insurmountable.

So please excuse me for taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in killing time between classes by watching the commentary on certain pro-Hillary websites turn vile, ignorant, and generally ridiculous. Some, probably most, Hillary supporters are starting to concede that things aren't going their way. Many of them express disappointment, but see the world hasn't ended. And wherever this kinder group is, it is not on these websites. These supporters cannot and will not concede, and seem to motivate themselves by upping their negativity and condescension of all non-supporters.

These comment threads lend a fascinating look into the psychology of rejected hopes and lost perspectives. The lesson here? Even though giving into your most negative mindset might be the easiest and most fun thing to do, it may cause you to act like a complete lunatic. And yes, there are Obama supporters and supporters of every candidate that have failed to learn this lesson. But right now it is the lunatic fringe on the Hillary side that grasps at negativity while staring into the jaws of defeat, making an exploration of this crazy fringe even more fun.

Our adventure today will explore the comments on posts from hillaryis44.org, an unofficial website, which I guess you could call grassroots:

h and I run the Irish 4 Hillayr myspace page, so there is one for England and one for Ireland. Satan doesnt have any support groups here that im aware of, only our girl:)

Now is not the time to give up guys–wins on March 4th will tilt this campaign back to us and give us momentum going into a key PA contest. Hillary has kept fighting for us, and she will NOT lose this contest. We are a comitted, strong willed, and stubborn bunch of people–not the type of people that Obambi wants to pick a fight with. Remember, Hillary's fans always stick by her–but Obambi is the one who's going up and down nationally for the last 3 months, depending on if he wins the last primary or not.

There are some common trends that this post makes use of, including making fun of Obama's name and a refusal to accept the bleak outlook for the Hillary campaign. While referring to Obama using his middle name "Hussein" is a popular tactic with the anti-Obama side and a lot of right-wing commentators, apparently there's some new cooler lingo with these people at the front of the movement. This includes Obambi, probably one of the more amusing attempts to paint Obama as a good-looking empty suit, but I was most surprised in the above post by the use of Satan. Yes, without any apparent attempt at irony, some Hillary supporters as referring to Obama as Lucifer, the Fallen Angel, source of the fall of man and all the world's evil, who engages in an eternal fight against our savior. Classy.

Maybe we should all stop after writing web comments and ask ourselves, "Hey, am I acting batshit insane?"

I should note that the blog which all these comments are coming from compares the Obama phenomena to the Music Man, the pet rock craze, and the Heaven's Gate cult all at once. This is their suggestion of where the Clinton campaign should take their argument. A general complaint on the site is that people like Obama because they're too ignorant, so instead of trying to educate them on what's good at Hillary, the campaign should just make comparisons to pop-culture that Obama supporters and undecided voters just haven't thought of yet.

This group has also bought on to the idea that media is biased to Obama, and they've bought on big time. Guess you can't have a fringe without an obsession with media bias.

MSNBC wants all the Obamabots watching their network for the next eight years because, god knows, it's quite clear most of them aren't capable of thought.

I guess blaming the mainstream media for Obama's success explains how he's done so well without acknowledging his actual strength. This is probably vital to the Hillary crowd, who has gone in way too deep to acknowledge that anyone could like Obama without being deceived or swindled. If they do so, apparently the cognitive dissonance would cause them to explode.

This trend of apparent deception continues to projections in the general election. Despite polling strongly showing Obama should fare much better against McCain, these fringe Clinton supporters seem to think the general election would be a catastrophe:

You don't know how HARD it was for me to live down Kerry getting swiftboated O_O and now, the most easily bashable, peace-calling, stuttering, porky-pig like, scandal ridden candidate is within steps of the democratic nomination

And, for all the talk that some Obama supporters are hurting the Democrats by threatening to not vote for Hillary, here's some proof that it goes both ways:

Obama is a cult and he likes it that way…I will NEVER vote for Obama because he is teaching our children the wrong values. That’s through threats, whinning and gang mentality is alright if you get your way

Huh. I have reservations about Hillary because she's not fighting monied interests enough and refuses to acknowledge she made a mistake voting for the war. But, right, Obama's rallies make use of "gang mentality", which is just as much of a substantive objection. So much for Paul Krugman of the New York Time's accusation that "most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody". He was writing a column against this kind of negativity and managed to fall, in a small way, into the same trap of tunnel vision. But I digress.

As much as the Obama campaign has been called a "religious movement", there's still some faith on the Hillary side:

i am now furious and disgusted with David Axelrod. I hope karma gets that SOB and his candidate too. If there really is a greater being, they will see how terrible and horrible these people are

And we would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids.

The Best Political Team of the Future

LOITERING WITH INTENT TRANSCRIPT – TUBE BALL – 8 PM 2/20/08 – ANY FAULTS IN TRANSCRIPT ARE NOT THE RESPONSIBILITY OF LOITERING WITH INTENT, PAUL OLIVER, OR ANY SUBSIDARIES – BLAME ALL MISTAKES ON OUR STUPID INTERN GREGORY – ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

(Begin transmission)

Moderator:
Hey everybody, Paul Oliver here. Welcome to Tube Ball.

As we all know, the Internet is the savior of a lost and confused world in dark and perilous times. It represents the future, because it’s a tool that helps us educate the people of the world. For example, Americans were once in general mostly ignorant yet uncompromisingly arrogant in their opinions. As we all know, the Internet changed all of that, because the facts were available to everyone with a simple stroke of the keys!

As you know, everyone on the Internet is knowledgeable, open to new information, and considerate of others. I mean, why wouldn’t they be, they have access to most of the world’s information!

That’s why for our panel on politics today, I’ve invited Digg Remarks, Facebook Discussions, and Youtube Comments to contribute their perspectives on the political scene. It’s the best internet political team ever!

You see, by taking real comments word-for-word from these websites and putting them in a standard format of political discussion like we usually see on cable TV, we will have a commentary that will naturally be extremely fair-minded and knowledgeable! Aren’t you excited?!

Today we’re going to be talking about the much-contested Democratic primary. No doubt, as we’re on the internet, we will be having intelligent discussions about issues like the difficult logistics of enforcing healthcare mandates, whether preconditions should be used when meeting with our nation’s enemies, and the future of clean coal technologies.

With this input today, we can really work together to get a well-thought out vision of how the candidates can learn from the intellectual paradise that is the Internet. Let’s play Tube Ball!

Youtube Comments, it’s good to have you here, what do you think about Barack Obama’s momentum after winning ten states in a row?

Youtube Comments:
THE FULL WEIZGHT OF THE GOP PROPAGANDA MACHINE WILL GO INTO HIGH GEAR AGAINST OBAMA...AND HE WILL LOSE IN THE GENERAL ELECTION

Moderator:
Sounds like you’re leaning towards Hillary on this one, do you think her experience card would play better against the GOP?

Youtube Comments:
The Hillary "experience" - a lazy, long suffering wronged wifey barking orders to her staff & military aides while the perv-in-chief is pleasured under the oval office desk - R.I.P. psycho bitch.

Moderator:
Alright, so you support nothing but the worst within all of us, I guess that's fair. So where is Obama’s momentum coming from?

Youtube Comments:
Google, closely allied with the farthest Right elements of our society (Voice of America) is promoting Obama on You Tube and denigrating Clinton.

Moderator:
Okay, that doesn’t really make sense. Let’s talk to someone else. Facebook, we haven’t really seen an indication that John McCain would be able to make negative attacks work any better than Hillary Clinton has. Do you see the general election playing out differently?

Facebook Discussions:
The pro-Obama sentiment on Hannity and Rush along with the rest of the Corporate media is more than suspicious. Right now it appears that the system is trying to create an Obama victory against McCain for it's own purposes. The manufacture of consent continues....

Moderator:
Okay, you absolutely didn’t answer my question and you’re kind of creeping me out. Digg Remarks, throw me a bone here.

Digg Remarks:
At first I thought Obama was just an empty suit. A half-assed semi-socialist like most Dems. But this makes him a dangerous guy! And he belongs to an anti-American anti-white church. And the pastor lauds Louis Farrakhan to the skies. Right now, I think O'Bama is the most dangerous man in the world.

Moderator:
Okay, aside from none of that being true, I think you just managed to offend a political philosophy and major religion in the same statement. Well, Digg Remarks, you don’t seem to like Obama. Who do you support?

Digg Remarks:
If everyone cared less about who's popular and more about who has real solutions for America and a real solid record Ron Paul would be doing much better.

Moderator:
What, well don’t you think some of us actually-

Digg Remarks:
And if Obama supporters continue to be-

Moderator:
…have looked up Ron Paul’s positions and aren’t happy…

Digg Remarks:
…worse than Ron Paul supporters…

(CROSSTALK)

Moderator:
(inaudible)

Digg Remarks:
Can I finish?

Moderator:
FINE. GO AHEAD.

Digg Remarks:
(Clears throat.) If Obama supporters continue to be worse than Ron Paul supporters on Digg and other internet forums, he will lose his advantage.

Moderator:
Are you out of your goddamn mind?! No one is going to change their support because of internet forums!

(Pause)

Moderator:
Okay, that was inappropriate, I apologize. Let’s go turn back to Youtube Comments. Youtube, really, explain how you see things playing out in the general election:

Youtube Comments:
the funny thing is that all of these retards have no clue. obama hasn't nary a fucking chance at getting elected in a general election. you will see euro-americans who are indys voting for anyone other than obama. white americans are still the majority. hahaha

Moderator:
Umm, wait what? First of all, how do you explain all these victories in the Midwest? Iowa is 95% white and he won there by eight points. And second, Euro-Americans? What does that even mean? Am I a Euro-American? Judges?

Judges:
Yes, Paul, he means Caucasian.

Moderator:
Okay, he probably should have just said that.

(Loud sigh)

Alright, Facebook Discussions, you’re composed of college and high school students, you must have some good analysis for us. What do you think are the challenges that our 44th president is going to have to confront first?

Facebook Discussion:
America is falling into a recession and needs technology and innovation. Dubai and China already have more skyscrapers under construction. The US if falling behind on fiber optics, biotechnology and health care is 42 in the world with one of the worst obesity and life expectancy rates.

Moderator:
Wow, that actually shows some global perspective, that’s hopeful. Well Facebook Discussion, how do you think Obama supporters feel about these global issues?

Facebook Discussions:
Obama's supporters are overwhelmingly black on a racist jihad.

Moderator:
WHAT?! How the hell can you say that in the same comment? You were just showing you had actually looked at The World section of a newspaper in the last year! Or maybe you listened to NPR a car with that slightly nerdy guy in your dorm who takes everybody to Chipotle on Friday’s! I had hope for you!

(Moderator reaches for saber hidden behind unnecessarily large and elaborate newsdesk)

(Audible clanking)

Judges:
Paul, now is not the time.

Moderator:
Okay, fine, you’re right. Let’s wrap this up. Youtube Comments, any final thoughts?

Youtube Comments:
SUSCRIBE TO MY VIDEOS

(End transmission)

The People's Piñata

A college diploma does not come in a half-size. If you ask for it this way you will, at best, get similar treatment to trying to order half a Grand Slam at Denny's. You will get a confused and irritated look and someone will spit in your eggs. Half a college diploma does not get you anywhere, which is why I was happy to walk through the doors of Target this morning and begin my orientation with the red army.

This isn't to say that working as a stocker is beneath me. After all, I've worked extensively as a stalker, and they sound almost exactly the same. I just figured two years of college would give me a little bit more credibility in my job hunt. After all, what are companies looking for if not the ability to complete Luigi's Raceway in under 1:45 or make up for three weeks of sobriety in 20 minutes?

Obviously, my speed and productivity in a position of greater responsibility would make all my older co-workers and supervisors look like incompetent, lazy slobs. This would in turn create the impression that intelligence drastically lowers with age, and would then force us into a misguided society that forces everyone over 35 to be turned into part of the food supply to power the young. If I had a college degree, someone might at least be able to determine we should be putting USC graduates into the food supply instead.

I must acknowledge my potential employers for their impressive foresight in this matter, and therefore reluctantly salute them into their choice to not hire me and spare the world this bleak fate. However, until I came to this conclusion, which is as soothing to me as Jeff Foxworthy is to the hollow souls of so many of my countrymen, I was a little let down. My job hunt didn't so much provide rejection as it didn't provide anything. It was like I had fought a piñata with all my might, yet after it's paper-maché body split in half it yielded only cold and empty darkness instead of Starburst and Laffy Taffy. I was left to wonder: Would I consider working at a Del Taco? And also, did I just decapitate Dora the Explorer?

Yet, like in Pandora's box, I saw something glinting weakly inside the piñata: mid-level retail that maintains much better brand image than its competitors. A voice bellowed from the heavens, "You are welcome here. Please pee in this cup."