That ceremony was as long as you thought it would be. 4.5 hours.
So this morning, I insisted on pre-graduation breakfast, and we took the hike all the way up the hill and then back down to the Ave for the first time, and stopped in at Continental. My mother, to my mild surprise, LOVED the food there and said the spinach mushroom omelet was easily the best omelet she's ever had, so there you go. She's a fan of feta, so it looks like I need to mix in more visits to Greek restaurants ;P But obviously, we'll probably be regulars for breakfast at Continental when she's in town.
With an hour to kill, we stopped at the University Bookstore, and she was fairly impressed with the layout, the clean look and the selection of books and stuff. I wasn't hard-selling the place or anything, though I had suggested previously we come down here, and she said, "I can see why you recommended this place!" Well, yeah.
Then we took the long walk down to Husky Stadium, passing hundreds of graduates and families filing in, and Mom really liked the architecture on the campus, so we took a bunch of pictures of me in the graduation gear standing before these buildings and things, pics that I'll upload and post soon. She's using my camera as hers got stolen in the infamous theft, and so I've got several pictures to send her. That upload will happen after they take off.
We got there and I broke off to sit in line for an hour and a half inside the football team's practice fieldhouse. I ran into a classmate and we sat in line, and I told her, "This is where the losing starts."
I'll condense several hours into a paragraph. It was sunnier than expected outside, I somehow did not get sunburned, my mother and brother did, the ceremony took a mere FOUR HOURS, too many people give too many speeches, too many graduates look like kids who are nothing resembling ready for the real world, I handled the ennui far better than I thought I would, Quincy Jones' overlong speech wasn't bad, he got an Honorary Degree as did interned Japanese from 1941-1942, and I now have a purple vinyl diploma-holder ;P
We cooked dinner at home... well, once we got home. With the roads blocked for graduation traffic, we walked out of QFC only to find the bus couldn't get up the road. Hot and tired, I wavered between calling a cab and getting a Zipcar only to eventually decide due to our short money to just hoof it and try to get up the 52nd staircase home. It was an arduous journey and some guy talked shit at the corner about me banging on the walk signal button, but I kept my yap shut and wouldn't bother with the guy at all, and good thing I did because my mother later told me that he was a bike cop. Yeah, that would've been a fun night in jail.
We got to take a look at the U District P-Patch, which impressed my mother because she had never seen a P-Patch before, and I explained to her what one was before we eventually made it up a shorter flight of stairs than they thought it would be, before walking the last block to the apartment.
I was at school in the 3rd grade when it went off. It looked like a mushroom crowd from our vantage point, and the three explosions remain among the loudest things I've ever heard. Everyone around me thought we had been nuked and was terrified. The blasts in Henderson blew out windows in Northtown, on the other end of town.
Harah’s plans to treat the World Series of Poker Main Event like a college bowl game
Harrah's will play the World Series of Poker on schedule in June/July... but once the final 9 players at the final table of the Main Event are set... they will hold off playing the final table until November. You know, because there are other poker tournaments who play through over several days and then wait 4 months to play their final table, like- oh wait, nobody does that because it's completely impractical. That's like playing 3 quarters of a basketball game, sending everyone home and then playing the 4th quarter 3 months later. We see it in baseball, but it's always the product of a badly timed weather cancellation. It's never scheduled.
Herein lies the rub: A discussion at All Vegas Poker brings up a very interesting possibility:
There are all sorts of mind bending possibilities:
*Players "disappearing" *Players being roughed up to play a certain way or lose on purpose (sites like Bodog actually take action on the winners of these events) *How about collusion planning amongst participants? You think there won't be chip dumping going on based on pre-arranged agreements? Please.
There's the biggest problem with this decision: given the string of amateurs that have won the Main Event in recent years, it may be in Harrah's' best interest to take several months to 'fix' the final table and make sure a credible pro wins the event. All you'd have to do is throw around some hush money or exercise some mob tactics* to ensure the desired finish.
Or they may not even have to do anything directly. A pro at the table (every Main Event final table has had at least one pro) can throw around some of his career earnings to pay off other players at the tournament to throw the tourney so he'd win, either through collusion or through chip dumping, exactly like how Jennifer Tilly "won" her WSOP bracelet.
I don't want to say championship poker as a national event has jumped the shark, because honestly, I think it's already jumped the shark (though I'm not exactly sure when). But this is going to deal a sledgehammer blow to poker's credibility, rather than enhance it.
* - If you seriously think the mob went completely away when corporate America took over the Vegas strip, you're naive.
It's been a while since I've seen the top of Queen Anne Hill. I walked all the way down Denny, through Seattle Center, and caught the 13 up here.
Believe it or not, save for a curious trip to Bumbershoot in 2004, I had never ventured within Seattle Center, so this was the first look at its normal state I've ever taken.
The Fun Forest looks like 1985 left it behind. Parents and kids who don't get out much were all over the place. The roller coaster and log ride looked left behind from a traveling carnival. The Fun Forest warehouse, with the laser tag and bumper cars, looked like a creepy pedophile's heaven. I didn't even dare venture inside.
The food court reminded me of a lit up, populated Central Park Mall (San Antonio's abandoned husk of a ghetto mall which was thankfully demolished a few years ago). Even the fonts on the direction signs indicated signs that were put up in 1981 and never replaced.
The place was packed with African and hippie bongo drummers, as apparently there was some giant drum circle festival going on at the Center. The area around Fisher Pavilion was partially abandoned and partially overrun with hippies, costumed drummers and families complete with bratty, bawling kids. KeyArena looked appropriately like an abandoned convention center.
A blues harmonica dude was practicing by his lonesome outside Vera Project's new offices. From the windows, the scattered art canvases and supply bottles reminded me of White Hall's quasi-abandoned art classrooms at UNLV.
Basically, Seattle Center needs a makeover, but it needed a makeover 15 years ago. I bet that any makeover the City eventually gets around to will somehow feature condos, $9 tapas places and an American Apparel store, despite the venue's status as a public space. They always find a way.
I postulate that one key reason why we as a society are so depressed is that we respond to it by doing things that depress us even more. We listen to sad ass ball-shrinking emo and indie music. We sit in place and sulk. We drink. I mean... how the fuck is any of this supposed to help the problem?
And then, after only trying methods that only further facilitate the problem, we throw up our hands and go to doctors to get psychomeds.
I'm not sure I can explain this phenomenon without going into 4th and 5th level subpsychology that explaining will only make my head hurt. So, instead of bothering, I will go back to writing and advise that, the next time you get depressed, try going out for a walk or a run or something that doesn't involve curling into a ball on your couch and listening to Elliot Smith or Death Cab or staring at the idiot box or pounding whiskey or anything else that involves validating or promoting a world view of hopeless malaise. The only true hopelessness is death.
My latest discovery is that Google Maps now has street level shots of my hometown, Lost Wages. They even have a street shot of the house I grew up in, in which I made a personally startling discovery.
WTF is that trailer doing there? Bike housing? Meth shack? Impromptu home for somebody? Dad's impulse purchase of the season? You probably know about as well as I do.
(The funniest thing is that I could just call my dad and ask. But IMO it's a lot more fun for the moment to blindly speculate. Also, given this shot is a bit dated, it's possible the trailer was only there temporarily and/or there is a depressing story behind why it's there. It usually turns out that way.)
So yeah, this is where I grew up. Ain't it lovely. Also, note the Honda parked on the front lawn. We're classy.
I'm going to post some good entries from my not so secret other blog, but first, here's some unintentional humor from the Mariners broadcasts on FSN Northwest.
To put the numbers into perspective, seven African countries or islands each have a gross domestic product of less than $1 billion, according to International Monetary Fund data. They include Sao Tome and Principe, Guinea-Bissau, Gambia, Comoros, the Seychelles, Liberia and Djibouti.
While they were careful not to criticize the American political process, people in some aid organizations mentioned other possible uses for so much money.
An official with CARE, one of the world’s leading humanitarian organizations fighting global poverty, said even a fraction of $1 billion could help tens of millions of people.
"An additional $150 million could ensure that 10 million girls could receive a quality education. An additional $150 million could help make pregnancy and safe delivery available for 30 million women in 10 countries," said Deborah Neuman, senior vice president for resource development at CARE.
I’ve asked this question myself for a while. Of course, the wonks don’t give a shit, because simple minds don’t question their reality and all. Political press-release bragging points these days in campaigns comes from comparing dick sizes in the form of campaign dollars raised.
Of course, it never occurs to the likes of an Obama or a Clinton that he/she could probably send a much greater public-image message by taking the dollars he/she raises and spending it philanthropically or productively on solving various problems than by spending it on P/R tours and advertising. But then I guess all those advisers, handlers and every other interest with a stake in these candidates wouldn’t get their money, so the scheme with all these candidates must continue. The circle jerk of cash must continue to siphon funds from the general public in the name of political activity... so that the rich can get richer.
I mean, when some wonk writes a candidate a $1000 check, do they not realize they’re funding a giant pyramid scheme? Of course not. Most of these are simple minds that cannot think critically, at least not beyond a basic first or second level, and sure as hell don’t understand marginal or inverse utility.
Davis Sklansky and Mason Malmuth, poker writers, described the inverse chip model: the more chips that are in play, the less each individual chip is worth. Likewise, the more money that is involved in a candidate’s fundraising... the less of a difference your $20/50/100 donation ultimately makes.
Massie Ritsch of the Center for Responsive Politics said even with the Internet contributions, only about 4 percent of Americans make a contribution to a federal politician.
"The bulk of the money is coming from a tiny group of largely wealthy Americans who are having a great impact disproportionate to their numbers on something that should be important to everybody," he said.
Klaman agreed. "That is what should frighten Americans -- when these guys get elected are they looking primarily out for the good of the people or are there debts that they need to pay back," he said.
So the next time Dan Savage brags about cutting some candidate a check, I should just find and pimp-slap him as a Pavlovian conditioning response, until he intuitively understands the error of his ways (and how he’s wasting his disposable income), correct?
Whether or not you think so, writing a candidate a check is ultimately a waste of your money, as the marginal utility of said check is negligible at best unless you have so much disposable income that you may as well go out and proactively enact the changes you want to see around you.
And when it comes to military and foreign policy, probably the only point of argument you’d have left at this point if you insist on disagreeing (and some of you will no matter what)... regardless of who is labeled as the leader of this country, those decisions are essentially made by white men in suits in the Pentagon. Iraq doesn’t happen if dozens of out-of-sight intelligence individuals didn’t agree with Dubya (and don’t believe for a second that any declassified FBI and CIA files out there even scratch the tip of the intelligence iceberg) and accordingly work behind the scenes to facilitate those decisions.
But really, find more productive uses of your money, America. Giving a marionette more cash to throw on the pile accomplishes nothing and means little to nothing to whoever you give it to, no matter what the form letter or the guy on the street says.
That’s really neat and all, but do you know why no one’s ever tried something like this? Bowling is loud. VERY loud. A 16 pound solid ball rolling down a lane and striking wooden pins, times however many lanes are in the alley, makes a lot of noise. Add in the social activity of the participants (usually a boisterous bunch, since it’s a fun activity, plus beer is often involved), and not even a floor of dead space will block out all the noise for anyone above, and even the idea of buffering the condos above from noise assumes you’ll never open your windows. Ever.
Plus, any vibrations from the noise or activity will likely reverb in some part through the structure, so even if you somehow can’t hear it, you’ll FEEL the activity below, and you can’t get away, because this is your home.
Nobody ever notices this, because bowling alleys are almost always solitary buildings, with no other structures above or around it. The open air itself, plus the outdoor ambient noise of a city, plus the exterior walls equals no discernible noise. But once you’re living right above one, and your only buffer is a couple of floors, it’s a completely different story.
The only places that have ever gotten away with building over a bowling alley are casinos, and no one notices because the slot machines and bustle of a casino itself is far louder than the noise in a bowling alley.
Plus, even if you can somehow make it work... you now have to a) sell $300K+ homes above a bowling alley to people and somehow convince them that the activity of a bowling alley will not be an issue and they can live peacefully, and b) somehow bait and switch all the businesses that have already leased spaces in the soon-to-be-built complex by telling them when they can and can’t do business without ending up on the bad end of a lawsuit or a lease termination. Also, I’m sure the advance leases are factored into the funds to get the place built in the first place, so it’s not exactly easy to just let them walk.
This is ripe for a conflict between new residents, left up the creek by a developer just trying to sell off the homes, and the alley... and this is the same problem that led to Mayor Nickels’ war on nightlife, where wealthy people moved into condos in neighborhoods with active nightlife... then complained to the city about the noise. Do we really want to fan the flames on that bullshit with a completely unnecessary implementation of a conceptually poor idea?
It’s a nice idea. And it’s not practical... unless this is one hell of a clever plot to undermine and sabotage the developers. But I’m sure those involved aren’t that clever.
Today was my last class. We e-mail Webster our final next week through some convoluted e-submit process, and that’s it. I will have graduated college, finally, after three stints for a total of 5.5 years of study. I will receive a Bachelor’s Degree in the mail from UW.
My lack of a reaction has concerned some people, but honestly, whether it’s because I’ve been so busy and I’m burnt from it, or because a life of crazy shit leaves me nonplussed about an otherwise important event, I don’t have much of an opinion. Yes, I’m aware of what is happening and all, but that’s about it. There isn’t much else to say or think for now.
Why do we keep playing with our clocks every six months again?
I propose that, instead of Daylight Savings Time, we do Graveyard Switch Time, where we switch our clocks ahead 12 hours every six months. Now THERE is a switch that will change things up and it might even save energy, in the form of accelerating death for thousands of Americans each year.
