"Marge my friend, I haven't learned a thing..."

(this is an old graph from The Onion - I've got nothing better to put in here)

As the timestamp will attest, it's 5AM. I've finally finished my paper on the Alamo, and now I've just got to kill time before going to school, since any attempts to sleep will result in me snoozing through my morning (and possibly afternoon) class.

The paper's terrible - it's pretty much just a bunch of book summaries, with a paragraph per source - but I'm somewhat pissed off at myself when I realize that my time management skills haven't improved since High School (that's as far back as I can remember pulling all-nighters). My first year at UD, I managed to go 60 hours straight without sleep for the stupid mock trial and some Kimbrough papers (that was the glorious time of the 175-pound, Abe-Lincoln-beard-ed version of me - there's a picture somewhere, I'm sure). I just kind of figured that eventually I'd learn ways to get things done at least the day before they're due.

Although it's not all bad. Re-reading the paper (which is really, really poorly written), I'm noticing that I not only have 45 endnotes, but fill up 1/6 of my total page count with single-spaced, 10-pt notes. And I know that tomorrow morning (in 3 hours), I'll be fielding complaints from students who were forced to provide 8 total sources (apparently, it's real hard to find sources about anorexia?)

The other plus is that I bought a 2-liter of Dr. Pepper and some powdered donettes to keep me awake, so I get a fun breakfast!

Being patriotic is all well and good, but not everyone is Hacksaw Jim Duggan

Paper 1 (TV and Culture) is finished and will get turned it at 2:30pm today
Paper 2 (Folklore) is halfway done, but got extension to Friday
Paper 3 (Genealogy of Culture) has 1 page done, and I'm already slamming my forehead into my desk

I'm being uber-productive (that's what procrastinating until the deadline does for you!), but it's terrible sitting in my office. The heat is still turned on, and since there is no ventilation or window to outside, it feels like a freaking swamp in here.

I've paused from writing about the Alamo to chug a Dr. Pepper and eat a Pop-Tart (only 75 cents!), and I found what might be the best argument for gastric surgery ever.

I'll readily admit that I was a huge pro wrestling fan growing up - I had neon sweatbands and got to see, first-hand, Earthquake crush Damien (bonus points for getting that reference, loyal readers). In high school, we enjoyed watching the NWO mass battles on WCW, where at the drop of a hat, two wrestlers would spark the equivalent of a gang rumble.

But this site brought back some happy memories, especially in the bio of Tugboat, whose action figure was one of the best (I usually paired him up with Jimmy 'Superfly' Snooka to take out Joe Turner's Rick Rude/Big Boss Man tag team).

Most shocking, however, is the "Where Are They Know?" for Paul Bearer, the former manager of the Undertaker. Back in the day, Paul was horribly overweight at wore makeup to look pasty and corpulent. According to his feature, he had emergency gastric surgery, and now looks decades younger and literally half his former size.

Plus, he now owns a mortuary/funeral home in Georgia - kharma, man, kharma...

Procrastination Time!

Good news - the Wife doesn't have kidney stones! Kudos to her kidneys for not failing to process sodium!

I'm halfway through final paper 1 of 3 (Post-Nuclear Sitcom Families and Poltical Satire), and the Dog is leaving me alone and sleeping outside. I figured I'd take a break from summarizing articles to make a contribution:


(a classic from the SomethingAwful Goldmine)

Good news! It's a suppository!

Sadly, the Commando post-of-the-century will have to wait until next week. The Wife had minor back pains on Saturday that escalated into full-blown, hunched-over incapacitation by Sunday night. We went to the 'doctor' (apparently, we were the only non-Wal Mart employees in the Urgent Care), who informed her that she has kidney stones.





So, instead of enjoying the scenic flatness of BG while I grade final papers, I'm back home, using one arm to keep The Dog in a half-nelson, while I type with the other. On the plus side, we got to watch the entire 2nd season of "Entourage," which is fluffy, but enjoyable.





As a gift to the loyal quartet of Official Readers, this was recently posted on MentalFloss:

I may hate cats, but I do love monorails...

Let us commence preparations for rumbling!

I've been busily recovering from taking a week off for the conference -
grading poorly written research essays and preparing a presentation on "Teddy
Roosevelt and masculinity in crisis" (the high point is showing a film clip from
a made-for-TNT movie by none other than John "Red Dawn" Milius). My day was made
earlier when the Maximum Guttenburg blog got its 4th official reader! In
celebration, I present this:

(That comes via Ege, the 3rd official reader)

Notice that, even on the Rock Tour (episode V1/2), R2D2 is stuck as a roadie.

I've got a completely badass post on Commando coming up, but until then, here's a selection from Wendy Molyneux's new McSweeney's post, "Failed Role-Playing":

Naughty Schoolgirl and Randy Literature Teacher
Required costumes:
1. Catholic-school uniform and patent-leather shoes 2. Conservative sweater and corduroys
TEACHER: Young lady, I'd like to talk to you in my office.
SCHOOLGIRL: OK. I'd love to come in your office.
TEACHER: Fine. I'm concerned about the paper you wrote on Emily Dickinson. You just wrote "She was crizzazy" on a piece of notebook paper. Emily Dickinson was a proto-modernist and a groundbreaking female poet. She was certainly eccentric, but calling her crazy denies the possibility that her unique aesthetic was intentional and implies that her poems were simply the product of mental illness.
SCHOOLGIRL: That's not very sexy.
TEACHER: Are you taking too many classes? Is that why you aren't finishing your work?
SCHOOLGIRL: Maybe if I take off my top and my—
TEACHER: Please stop that. I don't want to lose my job. Now, if you agree to do a makeup assignment on floral imagery in the poetry of Marianne Moore, I'll overlook this.
SCHOOLGIRL: But—
TEACHER: My office hours are over now. I'll look forward to getting that paper next week.
SCHOOLGIRL: I think we should get couples counseling.

A shiny new donkey to the man who brings me the head of Colonel Montoya...

I got back from Boston yesterday, finished making comments on the Research Essay drafts, and ate some perogies. I considered making a post last night, but got distracted and didn't. How's that for an introduction paragraph?

Last week was the annual PCA/ACA conference. It was in Boston, and I was originally going to be splitting a room with two other people. After my adventures in the A-T-L last year, I was planning on staying at the conference hotel, and figured that splitting the massive cost 3 ways would be sort of reasonable. Unfortunately, the other two bailed out (and didn't tell me until two weeks ago, after I called several times and sent many emails), and I was stuck in a $135-a-night room. Admittedly, it was pretty nice to get to just walk downstairs each morning, and I never had to go outside into the 10-degree Boston April. But, now I'm hosed with a $600 Hotel tab. I think Smitty owes me about 15 trips to Parnell's.

When I wasn't sitting through panels on "Talladega Nights and Masculinity" (which I freakishly predicted in a blog post about a month ago), I got to hang around downtown Boston, which, when you ignore all the Sox fans, is a pretty cool place. Got to see family, hang out with Koco (and his fish tank), and ride the least efficient public transit system outside of Soviet Russia (where road forks you...). In honor of the abyssmally slow T, here's a random picture I found a while ago and never posted:

(I was uber-productive and finished everything early - now I'm bored and waiting for an even more boring class to start. Maybe I'll post some actual content later)