eateggs

What a pleasant day it’s been!

I was awakened this morning by Amy, telling me it was time to get up for the Quads Academic Pentathalon. I drug myself out of bed, grabbed a pop-tart and a shirt, and wandered off to join my Pentathlon group. We cleaned some house during the prelims. We had a ~2 hour break before finals, during which time I spent some time on my slackline, and then came back for finals. Finals went well, although I left before the last two groups so that I could go see the Montana Shakespeare in the Park’s stage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was also very enjoyable. Upon arriving back at the Quad, I was informed that we won second place, which means free lunch next Thursday at the La Perilla. Whoo!

After that… I don’t remember. And then I watched Donnie Darko with Bovard, Meekyung and Andrew, which resulted in almost two hours of invigorating discussion about the plot, motifs and various other aspects of the movie. Having seen it a second time, I have so much more respect for the movie. It’s truly incredible, and Richard Kelly, who directed and wrote it, is a very intelligent man. It was good just to have conversation and debate about something– good heavens, I love my Quad and the people in it. That finished toward 1:00 (after watching all the deleted and extra scenes and half the director’s commentary), and from then till now I’ve been playing Super Smash w/ Andrew and Bovard. I’m getting better with Fox– not good yet, mind you, but better.

I’ve also found some time today to squeeze in a little work on Blog! 3.0, which I’m going back to now, as I jam out to some thumpin’ O.A.R.. This is easily the best day I’ve had in a long time. Whoo!

1. I set a new personal record tonight, running six miles in ~47 minutes (5×8.00min, 1×7.00min). Go me. I’m afraid that there’s some competitive element motivating me to do this… but even if that’s the case, so what? I’m running further than I’ve ever run before.

2. I saw The Incredibles with Ken and Josh tonight. Oh my goodness.

All I can say is that The Incredibles is another grand slam for Pixar studios. Outrageouly funny, great voice acting, animation every bit as good as is to be expected from Pixar, mild social commentary (see: malpractice lawsuits) and just an uplifting and rewarding experience that sent me from the theatre grinning from ear to ear. I’d really like to write more, but it’s 3:03AM, and I’ve been wanting to go to bed all day. The Film Threat review is well written and, in my opinion, does the film justice. I full-heartedly agree with the 4.5/5 star rating, and think I may have enjoyed The Incredibles just a little more than Finding Nemo.

3. I’m off to bed.

4.

CNN collected some very interesting statistics to go along with the election which can be found here:
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

I’m thoroughly frustrated. Here’s why:

45% of Americans disapprove of the decision to declare war on Iraq. Of that 45%, however, more than 99% of those voted for a presidential candidate who supported the declaration of war.

Likewise, 52% of Americans believe that things are going badly in Iraq, but again less than 1% of those were willing to vote for a candidate who would withdraw our troops from Iraq.

55% of Americans believe the War in Iraq is part of the War on Terrorism. !!!

23% of gay & lesbian voters voted for Bush.

Some of these just plain boggle the mind. For example:

34% of Americans strongly disapprove of the way Bush does his job, and yet 2% of these people still voted for Bush. . . . Is there something I’m simply failing to understand here? If you strongly disapprove of how Bush is running his presidency, why in God’s name would you VOTE for him??

26% of Americans are not only dissatisfied, but are in fact ANGRY with the Bush administration. Despite their anger, 3% still voted for Bush. …

22% of voters considered “moral values” as their post important issue. Astoundingly, 80% of these voted for Bush. By effect, then, Bush received 17.5% of his votes for being “a moral leader,” and not for his effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) as a polician. Good heavens. Do these people REALIZE that their “moral” candidate has a cocaine conviction on his record? That he’s had two D.U.I.s? That he LIED to the American public about the rational for entering Iraq??

I dunno. I’m not at all surprised that Bush won. I’m just disappointed in the number of Americans who voted contrary to their convictions or were (seemingly) misinformed about their candidate of choice.

Not that it matters.

On a side note, while looking for something else, I happened to come across a wholesale distribution site, which had those ever-so-clever “Support Our Troops” magnets (see below). They were bulk priced at $1.00 each, meaning that every “Support Our Troops”[sic] and “God Bless America”[sic] magnet one sees on the road (and good God, there’s enough to make one nauseous) represents a $4 profit for the gas station or Hallmark that happened to be selling them. HOW do they support our troops? It’s simple, really. They support our troops by supporting our economy. They support our economy be exploiting false American patriotism, which coincidentally seems to the same reason we’re in Iraq– an ostensive war for “democracy” with strong suggestions of economic motivations (Haliburton stock went up by 4.5% percent today with the announcement of Bush’s victory).

I really need to stop ranting and go do some homework. I’m pretty riled up at the moment. All of this makes me feel sick to my stomach. For the love of God, America, wake up already! If you need me, I’ll be puking in the bathroom.

A Cheyenne high school teacher I have a lot of respect for challenges students who use the word “progress.” He asks them “where is progress? what IS progress? show me ONE instance of progress in the world and you can use that word in my class.” As I was doing some reading for my Brit Lit II class, I came across a convincing argument for the existence of progress in John Stuart Mill’s “The Subjugation of Women.”

“For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world– the difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, modern social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past? It is, that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable.” ~ John Stuart Mill, The Subjugation of Women 1869

If you haven’t seen this yet (“Our Land,” from JibJab.com), I’d reccommend it:
http://atomfilms.shockwave.com/contentPlay/shockwave.jsp?id=this_land&preplay=1&ratingBar=off

Today, being election day, was a MSU holiday, meaning no classes. I really should have capitalized on the day, but that would have involved getting up at a reasonable hour. I didn’t wake up until about 11:40AM, and then I worked from 12:00-4:00. After work I went for a run (4mi@8mins each) and talked to Elise from Quad C for a while. After dinner I brewed some coffee and met up with Jill for a while, and after being kicked out in preference to her MTA101 reading, I wandered back to my Quad, which brings me to now.

Good heavens. This whole daylight savings time thing is throwing me off. It was dark by 6:00 tonight, which seems so strange to me. It seems like just last week there was light until at least 8:00. I guess it means that winter is on its way. It’s expected to snow tonight. Speaking of daylight, the sky was beautiful tonight as the sun set. In the west it was filled as far as the eye could see with scattered clouds creating a glorious gradient of orange to pink. Seeing the sky tonight made me realize that I really miss Wyoming sunsets (see below). I imagine that the sunsets here could be breathtaking as well, but I’ve never seen one, owing to the inability to see the western horizon from anywhere on campus. I think I’ll try to find some place that I can see the sunset from here, and I’m going to make a point of seeing a sunset when I go home for Turkey day.

Well, that’s all for now. I need to go read some chemistry and do some french homework, and then I’m going to finish watching The English Patient.

Ta ta,
-Mark