So, I got distracted on Wednesday by a strange need to free up hard drive space on my laptop and watch the Palehose in their life and death struggle with the Orange Stripey Kittehs. Still, I have some things on my mind. So, in no particular order:
1. Smash Mouth released a new album last week. Seriously, you guys, Smash Mouth.
2. Matchbox 20 also released a new album last week. I actually own that, because it pretty much sounds like every other Matchbox 20 album. Now that I think about it, that’s not really an advertisement. Whatever. Rob Thomas needs to feed his family or something, dammit.
3. True story: the first concert I ever went to that I will proudly admit was Matchbox 20 at the Aragon Ballroom. The last time I was at the Aragon Ballroom was to see Flogging Molly. Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears opened.
4. You might have heard that there’s a teachers’ strike in Chicago. You might be thinking that I have something to say on the subject. You’re probably wrong. This is one of those stories where there basically aren’t any actual good guys and everyone is a villain on some level. Rahm Emanuel is a dick. The head of the CTU seems to be grandstanding in an attempt to score points off of Rahm Emanuel, who is a dick. The teachers have some legitimate grievances about the quality of the CPS buildings and the classroom sizes, but they’re also pretty much the highest paid teachers in the country and they have the shortest school day in the country. There’s a lot of whining about teacher evaluations that might lead to teachers getting fired because the teacher evaluations are arbitrary and pointless. To that I say, “Ha!” Again, “Ha!”
Seriously, every time my company starts talking about year-end goals and evaluations I go into a mental loop where I just think, “Is my resume up to date?” It’s not that I’m worried about getting fired or anything. I am, in fact, already in position to meet or exceed all my 2012 goals. It’s just that the whole thing is a giant load of flaming bullshit.
Oh, and the city of Chicago is kinda-sorta broke and they have offered some pretty big monetary concessions, including a 16% raise spread across four years. So, really, where is all the money for the raises and extra teachers and building upgrades supposed to come from? I suppose they could raise taxes, but Chicago also has the highest taxes in the country at the moment. This is not a good way to create fuzzy goodwill in the community.
Basically, the whole thing is making me happy I didn’t buy in the city.
5. Speaking of, I’ve been keeping an informal survey of yard signs. There are a grand total of 7 houses with Romney signs and 4 houses with Obama signs in the Wheaton city limits that I’ve seen. Considering that this is Wheaton, I take that as a sign that there’s little enthusiasm for Mittens. Also, I’ve seen three houses with yard signs for Peter Roskam, the Republican who’s pretty much guaranteed to win the House seat for Illinois District 6 (seriously, up until about five minutes ago I thought the Dems weren’t even putting anyone up against him. Turns out I was wrong. But the district primarily covers Wheaton, Glen Ellyn, Barrington, Downers Grove, Hoffman Estates…and, fuck it, it’s been represented by a Republican since 1973. True, that Republican was mostly Henry Hyde, but…well, my point stands). The houses that have Roskam signs don’t seem to have Romney signs. Also, Obama won the district by a pretty hefty margin in 2008. Like, a double digit margin.
6. So, there’s something that’s been wandering about through my mind off and on for the last couple years and I figure I might as well solicit some advice:
I’m 31 and single, last I checked. One of the interesting things about being 31 and single is that there’s a not insignificant chunk of single women of roughly my age who are single mothers. In the past that’s pretty much been an automatic deal breaker.
I don’t have anyone in particular in mind, so this is a purely academic inquiry, but should I be re-evaluating my stance? On a functional level, I am fully capable of holding down a career, I’m a homeowner, and my dog has managed to not starve to death on my watch, so I know I’ve got most of the earmarks of maturity necessary to handle the situation.
Also, I’m basically surrounded by children these days. It’s weird. That’s basically why I’m trying to decide if I need to re-evaluate things.
7. This is awesome. In a sort of “I just threw up in my mouth” sort of way.
8. This is not so awesome, mostly because it didn’t really have to happen.
Seriously, the whole Libya thing over the last 24 hours or so has been awful. Specifically, though, the way it’s been hijacked into a conversation about Mitt Romney and Israel has been beyond terrible. Romney or his handlers apparently decided that this was a chance to win a news cycle and came out with some of the dumbest, most tin-eared possible talking points. So rather than talking about the fact that terrible things happened we got to talk about how Romney did a terrible job of responding.
Then a bunch of theories cropped up amongst the commentariat of the places I frequent on the internet that this whole thing was just ginned up by Romney and Bibi Netanyahu to try to discredit Obama in a false flag operation or something. I lack the words to describe how indefensibly stupid I find those theories to be. But this is one of those things where it pretty much illustrates that both the left and the right are fully capable of creating the dumbest possible conspiracy theories out of thin air and being annoying as fuck about it.
9. Also, too, right now the Orange Stripey Kittehs are up 7-1 in the eighth. I’m not happy.
1. Smash Mouth released a new album last week. Seriously, you guys, Smash Mouth.
2. Matchbox 20 also released a new album last week. I actually own that, because it pretty much sounds like every other Matchbox 20 album. Now that I think about it, that’s not really an advertisement. Whatever. Rob Thomas needs to feed his family or something, dammit.
3. True story: the first concert I ever went to that I will proudly admit was Matchbox 20 at the Aragon Ballroom. The last time I was at the Aragon Ballroom was to see Flogging Molly. Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears opened.
4. You might have heard that there’s a teachers’ strike in Chicago. You might be thinking that I have something to say on the subject. You’re probably wrong. This is one of those stories where there basically aren’t any actual good guys and everyone is a villain on some level. Rahm Emanuel is a dick. The head of the CTU seems to be grandstanding in an attempt to score points off of Rahm Emanuel, who is a dick. The teachers have some legitimate grievances about the quality of the CPS buildings and the classroom sizes, but they’re also pretty much the highest paid teachers in the country and they have the shortest school day in the country. There’s a lot of whining about teacher evaluations that might lead to teachers getting fired because the teacher evaluations are arbitrary and pointless. To that I say, “Ha!” Again, “Ha!”
Seriously, every time my company starts talking about year-end goals and evaluations I go into a mental loop where I just think, “Is my resume up to date?” It’s not that I’m worried about getting fired or anything. I am, in fact, already in position to meet or exceed all my 2012 goals. It’s just that the whole thing is a giant load of flaming bullshit.
Oh, and the city of Chicago is kinda-sorta broke and they have offered some pretty big monetary concessions, including a 16% raise spread across four years. So, really, where is all the money for the raises and extra teachers and building upgrades supposed to come from? I suppose they could raise taxes, but Chicago also has the highest taxes in the country at the moment. This is not a good way to create fuzzy goodwill in the community.
Basically, the whole thing is making me happy I didn’t buy in the city.
5. Speaking of, I’ve been keeping an informal survey of yard signs. There are a grand total of 7 houses with Romney signs and 4 houses with Obama signs in the Wheaton city limits that I’ve seen. Considering that this is Wheaton, I take that as a sign that there’s little enthusiasm for Mittens. Also, I’ve seen three houses with yard signs for Peter Roskam, the Republican who’s pretty much guaranteed to win the House seat for Illinois District 6 (seriously, up until about five minutes ago I thought the Dems weren’t even putting anyone up against him. Turns out I was wrong. But the district primarily covers Wheaton, Glen Ellyn, Barrington, Downers Grove, Hoffman Estates…and, fuck it, it’s been represented by a Republican since 1973. True, that Republican was mostly Henry Hyde, but…well, my point stands). The houses that have Roskam signs don’t seem to have Romney signs. Also, Obama won the district by a pretty hefty margin in 2008. Like, a double digit margin.
6. So, there’s something that’s been wandering about through my mind off and on for the last couple years and I figure I might as well solicit some advice:
I’m 31 and single, last I checked. One of the interesting things about being 31 and single is that there’s a not insignificant chunk of single women of roughly my age who are single mothers. In the past that’s pretty much been an automatic deal breaker.
I don’t have anyone in particular in mind, so this is a purely academic inquiry, but should I be re-evaluating my stance? On a functional level, I am fully capable of holding down a career, I’m a homeowner, and my dog has managed to not starve to death on my watch, so I know I’ve got most of the earmarks of maturity necessary to handle the situation.
Also, I’m basically surrounded by children these days. It’s weird. That’s basically why I’m trying to decide if I need to re-evaluate things.
7. This is awesome. In a sort of “I just threw up in my mouth” sort of way.
8. This is not so awesome, mostly because it didn’t really have to happen.
Seriously, the whole Libya thing over the last 24 hours or so has been awful. Specifically, though, the way it’s been hijacked into a conversation about Mitt Romney and Israel has been beyond terrible. Romney or his handlers apparently decided that this was a chance to win a news cycle and came out with some of the dumbest, most tin-eared possible talking points. So rather than talking about the fact that terrible things happened we got to talk about how Romney did a terrible job of responding.
Then a bunch of theories cropped up amongst the commentariat of the places I frequent on the internet that this whole thing was just ginned up by Romney and Bibi Netanyahu to try to discredit Obama in a false flag operation or something. I lack the words to describe how indefensibly stupid I find those theories to be. But this is one of those things where it pretty much illustrates that both the left and the right are fully capable of creating the dumbest possible conspiracy theories out of thin air and being annoying as fuck about it.
9. Also, too, right now the Orange Stripey Kittehs are up 7-1 in the eighth. I’m not happy.
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