"I'm Only Happy When it Rains..."

It's pouring outside right now.  It has been since last night.  I love and hate days like these; I love them when I'm allowed to be pensive and lazy, indulging in solipsistic reverie and hot-chocolate-enhanced reading splurges.  I hate days like these when I have *gasp* intense responsibilities like 30 pages of paper writing, lesson plans to review and finals to prepare for.  You like how I got in that little bit of whining?  Yeah, I did too.

Interlude: I meant to put this in a November 13th entry but didn't get around to it.  I wanted to say Viva La Raza, Eddie Guererro.  You were a great wrestler and entertainer who died way too young.  As one fan rightly put it, "Its about time Heaven had some Latino Heat".  RIP, Eddie: Vaya con Dios.

Interlude #2: Damn my cat is cute.

I had some thoughts the other day about the nature of writing.  My friend Casey has started writing a play called "Writing Sucks"; I wonder to what extent that is true.  My friend Sonya and I pondered this while bitching about essay writing, Grad-school style.  We came to the conclusion that Masters style essay writing no longer has anything to do with independent creative analysis about the text; instead, its really a critique on the critics who have written about your chosen topic.  You can't write anything worthwhile these days without consulting a zillion other critics and theorists.  The point of this activity is to humble the lowly grad student into a state of perpetual submission to their intellectual superiors, making them feel continually inadequately prepared to offer up their own carefully constructed and equally valid point of view on the subject matter.  

The best critical texts I've read so far are clear, concise, and have a point worth proving.  Yes, it may seem simple for a grad student devoted to higher learning but I am an advocate for reader-friendly academic arguments.  Every teacher I've had in college has put question marks by any prose I wrote that attempted to imitate this high-toned, obtuse analytical writing so favored by current academicians.  A professor I had last year  made my life by condemning such a confusing and overwrought style.  I have embraced that notion and hope to implement it as my academic life continues.  Can writing been affecting and creative and still have meaning, even in dense critical arguments? Of course!  For a great example, see Jerome McGann's Swinburne: An Experiment in Criticism. 

Does writing suck?  It doesnt have to, but sometimes thats unavoidable if you want to play the game.  As my AP English teacher once responded to a student who wondered why we had to write a certain way when people like Hemmingway and Camus gave high style the finger, "Only after you know all the rules can you learn how to break them".  I'll never forget it. 

Back to the rain theme, its really going to be raining hard on me proverbially for the next two weeks.  Heh, well aren't I only happy when it rains?

The Most Awesome Thing Ever!

Man, I know I can always count on Strong Bad for a good laugh: Celebrating 10 Glorious Seconds of Nunchuking Snowmen

Impressive.  MOST Impressive.

And on another note, Diamond Select has supposedly stopped production of their Destro Mask!  Glenn, your mask just got a thousand times more valuable!