Friday, December 14, 2007

Steroids

The Mitchell Report came out, and Roger Clemens was alleged to have used steroids. I am mostly hearing that people are shocked at this, but wasn't this obvious? He kept getting better with age, pitched until he was 44, and he got a lot bigger. I just don't understand why people are shocked at this when it is completely obvious that Barry Bonds used steroids. I think that the difference might be slightly racial.

I'm not saying that Clemens actually used steroids, but it isn't all that inconceivable that he did.

I had a dream last night that I had an Oriole stuck in my foot. It was painful. The beak was going right into my big toe. I have no idea how it got in my shoe.

I also dreamed that I was Beecher from Oz. It is weird that I dreamed I was him, as I now identify less with him.

This is my second to last day of teaching. I have my lectures for both today and tomorrow all done.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Wire=Done

I finished both The Wire (season 4) and Stumbling on Happiness last night. They were both good. I also got a lot of work done last night.

I also got my second job interview. I applied for five jobs total, so that is already a good ratio.


I think that I might be done Christmas shopping, save for one tiny project.

Monday, December 10, 2007

The Wire

I got season 4 of The Wire last week. I have seen 5 episodes, and I am super-excited about the final 8 episodes. It is about schools, elections, and research studies! Also, drugs.

It is icy in Boston today, which is how I think of Boston winters. People were walking to school in a penguin-like fashion today. I slipped several times, but never fell.

My students have a midterm tonight, which means a lot of grading. But it should be done after tonight, and then I won't have any more midterms for a month!

I played basketball yesterday. I won two games of 2-on-2, and three games of 1-on-1. This does not mean that I am doing well, since I am still slow when I play with other people. However, I am regaining some of my skillz.

This story is ridiculous. I don't believe that everyone should get to work any job that they choose. For instance, I don't think that I should be able to build airplanes right now, because I don't have the first idea how to do that. I don't think that I should be allowed to perform open heart surgery. And I don't think that creationists should have a right to work as evolutionary biologists (how is that even possible?). I suppose that I would similarly say that atheists do not have the right to be priests.

Here is the most ridiculous line of the article: "he had been required to accept Darwin's theory of evolution as scientific fact or lose his job." There is no loss to accept evolution as "scientific fact." It IS scientific fact. No one should be able to argue with this, because a "scientific fact" is that which has near-consensus in the scientific community. This does not mean that evolution is "true" in any sort of metaphysical sense (although the evidence appears to be compelling), but this does not concern science. Science is about making predictions. It another "scientific fact" later demonstrates to be better at predictions, then the older, more inferior "scientific fact" ceases to be a scientific fact.

That's all I have. I need to sort through applications now.

Friday, December 07, 2007

Happy Basketball Christmas!

Happy birthday to Larry Joe Bird!

I have two things of note today: first, Bill Simmons said that he really likes the Vikings this season. This makes me very happy. I said that they were bad previously (and they were), but it looks like they have come around.

Second, I have been wondering for a while why there is an idea that students give teachers apples. I probably saw this on a Charlie Brown cartoon, but the idea stuck in my head. This is a common idea that is around. My bank is the Teacher Federal Credit Union, and its logo features an apple. However, I have never actually seen, nor even heard of, an actual student giving an actual apple to an actual teacher. I thought that it was a completely outdated idea, so much so that I discussed this with one of my classes. So I thought that this idea should old, and the association of students/teachers/apples should fade away.

Until today. A student brought me an apple! And she wasn't a student from the class with which I discussed this idea - she has never heard me discuss this before! This is exciting.

One final thing: I watched two more episodes of Oz, and I now have a great ability to watch it. I think that I will watch the next DVD to see what happens.

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Oz

I watched the first episode of Oz last night (the prison one, not the scarecrow one). It is difficult to watch, especially since I could identify with one of the characters. This is one of the genius moves about the first episode - they made it scarier by putting a white, educated, middle class guy in the prison. Scary. I'm not sure that I am going to continue watching it, although I might.

I was planning on playing basketball today, but then it took me 50 minutes to send two faxes. I couldn't squeeze the ball in before my meeting. It's a shame. Then I created a great plan for my discrete math class, only to realize that I don't have enough time in the semester to do it.

The Tigers just got a lot scarier, what with non-Melky Cabrera and Dontrelle Willis and all.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Weekend

It has been a very social weekend. Skye had a work party on Friday. Most importantly, I met up with J again (I'll try to come up with a better name for him). I'm going to try to speak to him more often, which is easier now that I have his email. Also, we won $50 worth of iTunes stuff. This was easily the best prize in the raffle, in my opinion.

Saturday was mostly spent stuffing envelopes for a charity. After this, we watched the first half of season 3 of Arrested Development. We watched the second half on Sunday.

I met up with some Orientation Leaders from the "U" on Sunday. We talked about the trapeze. Then we watched Arrested Development and talked to Skye's roommate, who just returned from a trip.

Now, let's talk about sports. First, the Vikings are doing much better than I expected. Good job, Vikes!

Second, I'm not sure about trading Santana. Of course, I'm not happy to see him go, but it seems like we aren't getting a lot back from him in the rumored trades. The Yankees are offering Hughes, Melky Cabrera, and a "midlevel prospect." Doesn't this seem to be a really low offer for the best pitcher in baseball? Cabrera never struck me as all that great, so it wouldn't be much more than Hughes's potential for Santana.

For the Red Sox, it seems like an Ellsbury/Lester or Ellsbury/Buckholz foundation would be reasonable (although probably not Ellsbury/Lester/Buckholz). Lester/Buckholz might be a little high. But lately they have been talking about Ellsbury with some lower-level prospects? This doesn't seem right to me.

I think that part of it is that I haven't yet been able to think of the importance contracts in baseball trades. I can do it for the NBA, but not yet for baseball.

Personally, I think that I would love to see a Lester/Buckholz/Crisp trade; I would imagine that Minnesota would have to throw something else in to even the deal, but I don't think that this is unreasonable.