rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

follow me.

I worked last night. supposed to get off at 12:30, was there til 1:15. felt bad leaving the other driver with all sorts of shit to do. she’s so tiny she can barely lift a full trashbag into the dumpster out back, so I hung out and cleaned up a little bit.
I stress a little bit.

then I got off, went to the library to start and finish my final project for P290. due now, this morning, 9 am.
if I don’t pass with at least a C, I’m totally fucked. I have a straight C right now, so I’m going to need to pull it out.
either way, I dick around and take my time and work on my Toby Keith facebook fan club and read Marilyn Manson lyrics, and finally get to the end of the motherfucker, and I send it to print.
I get up, and push my chair under the desk, and it bumps the computer tower. screen flickers, but I shrug it off.
I print the paper from the queue.
come back. computer’s off.
I turned the computer off. I turned the computer off when I bumped it with the chair. fuck. shit turn it back on fuck.
I look down at the rough hard copy in my hand and wait for the computer to reboot.
nothing. all gone. hadn’t saved anything. fuck shit damn fuck shit.
so I go home and shower. fuck around on the new laptop. go get breakfast, read the joke of a paper that is the Indianapolis Star. come to class at 9 am, like the walking dead.
the paper isn’t due until tuesday morning.
now I can rewrite it, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.

way to go, slugger.

this is on the front page of the New York Times today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/business/27oil.html

record profits.

“Nobody’s happy with gasoline prices being where they are,” said Representative Joe L. Barton, Republican of Texas and chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who last year championed scores of new tax breaks for the industry.

somebody needs to kick that guy in the balls, hard.


“Nobody has any sympathy for oil companies on Capitol Hill right now,” said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia and vice chairman of the House Republican Conference. “You talk to someone driving to work in an F-150 pickup and paying $75 to fill up his tank, and everybody’s on his side.”

not me. that dumbfuck shouldn’t be driving a truck that gets about 15 miles a gallon.


“The big companies don’t want them, don’t need them and are not asking for them,” said J. Robinson West, chairman of PFC Energy, an oil industry consulting firm. But the smaller independents, he said, “are not going to give up easily.”

somebody needs to kick that guy in the balls, hard.


Red Caveney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the large oil companies, said his group would not fight to retain the newest tax breaks.
“We understand the frustration that consumers have expressed about energy prices,” Mr. Caveney told reporters on Wednesday.

no they don’t.

that’s the best shirt ever, Mar.

so Little 500 has come and gone.
it’s kind of like the 4th of July, only just in Bloomington with a bunch of drunk, obnoxious children, whom I was among. I haven’t been as hungover as I was on saturday morning in a long time.
went and saw the women’s race on friday. was pretty cool. I’d imagine the men’s race is the same shit, only longer. maybe I’ll come back for one when I’m overweight and middle-aged, living in some godforsaken Indianapolis suburb working for Eli Lilly.
I’m glad I’m able to say I went to one in five years.

column ran in the paper today. why do we coddle dictators?

they finally put that fucking short story up.

this is incredibly old news, but it really burns my ass that it’s my country’s fault that Iran is run by a bunch of assholes.

went to the god damned mall today.
the mall. where America went to die.
I bought running shorts at Dick’s Sporting Goods®. the blonde cheerleader at the register asked me if I wanted to sign up for the Dick’s “save and reward” card.
I stared at her until she rang me up.
then I went into Target and bought another pair of khakis I can wear until the ass tears out. I put miles on my pants, homey.

ate chicken salad with Alisha, went running in my new kickass shorts, signed for the laptop that came in the mail, and came to work.

and here we are.

something to think about: “the Wonder Pets” on Nickelodeon is the most hypnotic, bizarre, and creepy/hysterical show on television. I don’t even know what to do when I flip past it. I always end up watching it.to the meat:
Phil’s getting a shout-out.
he’s a business student in the business school, and he hates it. fucking hates it. bitches about class all the time, about everything they discuss is bullshit, how he doesn’t like anyone in it; professors, fellow students.
this all makes sense, as Phil is about as “labor” as labor gets. if his classmates and his teachers knew his dad is an executive in the

USW, they’d probably try to light him on fire.
seriously. there are social democrats – abortion rights, gay rights “progressives” – and labor democrats –”the god damn management keeps shipping our god damn jobs to god damn Mexico” kind of people. this is Phil. very interested in international trade and the way big business fucks us all in the ass.
I like Phil. he’s got conviction. and he’s funny.
so anyway. he’s in class again, probably wearing his headphones, and they’re discussing a case study; this one is concerned with Nike’s labor practices in Indonesia. they pay minimum wage jobs over there, there have been allegations of sweatshop/underage labor employment in Nike’s plants. generally some pretty vile stuff.
“they never offer any solutions,” says Phil. “they don’t have any. they just justify it by saying stupid shit like ‘well, that’s the legal minimum wage in Indonesia. what can we do?’ because it’s like Phil Knight isn’t fucking rich enough.”
this is vintage Phil.
okay, so he raises his hand and begins arguing something to the effect of “just because their government allows it doesn’t mean we, or companies, should exploit it. we had to fight for labor protection over here, and we shouldn’t do it to other countries because they don’t have the same protection.”
that’s the gist of his argument. he goes back and forth with the instructor, keeps on raising his hand. “I never, ever, speak in class,” he says, and it becomes very clear that he’s the only person in class who feels this way.
“it’s really hard to not make these arguments personal,” he says.
after a while, after what was probably another short speech on corporate ethics, some guy who will probably someday be my boss says to Phil,
“why are you even in the business school?”

and without missing a beat, Phil says to him,
“cause you gotta spend some time in the snake pit to know when you’re getting bit.”

that’s my main man, Phil.

Dead Kennedys
“holiday in Cambodia”

so you’ve been to school for a year or two
and you know you’ve seen it all.
in daddy’s car, thinkin’ you’ll go far;
back east your type don’t crawl.
you play ethnicky jazz to parade your snazz
on your five grand stereo,
bragging that you know how “the niggers feel cold”
and “the slums got so much soul.”

it’s time to taste what you most fear.
Right Guard will not help you here.
brace yourself, my dear …

it’s a holiday in Cambodia.
it’s tough, kid, but it’s life.
it’s a holiday in Cambodia.
don’t forget to pack a wife.

you’re a star-belly sneech, you’re sucking like a leech,
you want everyone to act like you.
kissing ass while you bitch so you can get rich
but your boss gets richer on you.
well you’ll work harder with a gun in your back
for a bowl of rice a day.
slave for soldiers til you starve
then your head’s skewered on a stake.

well, now you can go where people are one.
now you can go where they get things done.
what you need my son …

is a holiday in Cambodia
where people dress in black.
a holiday in Cambodia
where you’ll kiss ass or crack.

Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot, Pol Pot …

and it’s a holiday in Cambodia
where you’ll do what you’re told.
a holiday in Cambodia
where the slums got so much soul.

I’ve been listening to too much Avail.
suddenly, I’m on their website, and I’m buying a fucking t-shirt, and then, reality hits me. do I really need another t-shirt?

so our neighbor (Smith’s kind of-girlfriend) wants to set me up with one of her friends.
“she’s really nice and cute,” she says.
I’ve got the worst-case scenario worked out already. quasi-stoner who uses the word “fuggin’” as an acceptable adjective in most sentences.
I kind of doubt it’ll be like that. but it’d be pretty funny if it was, am I wrong?

tomorrow I’m making Smith help me send in a hardcopy resume and cover letter to a PO box in Chicago. its the stateside hiring for a teaching position at an all girls Christian prep school outside Kobe, Japan.
they make bad porno out of stuff like that. but who cares. they need an English teacher, and I speak it real good. sounds cool.

I wonder how many people out there claim “rocket man” by Elton John as their song?
you know what I’m saying.
“that’s my song, man! ‘think it’s gonna be a looong, looonng time.’ it so, like, speaks to me.”

I’ve had Phil’s copy of “Honky Chateau” in my car for about two months now. only now am I really listening to it. I brought it and “get behind me Satan” to work today. and after two hours, I’d have to say, with certainty, that Elton John is a hard motherfucker.

more news.
I just bought a computer. with my parents’ credit card. don’t worry; they know.
graduation gift. I’m beyond grateful.
one of the prereqs that it asked was “do you intend to export this Dell product outside of the United States?” I checked “no.” we’ll see.

speaking of which, I haven’t heard back from any motherfuckers about working overseas.
ARE YOU MOTHERFUCKERS TRYING TO TELL ME SOMETHING? AM I NOT MARKETABLE?
I swear to god, it may be my cover letter. I hate those things. every time I cut and paste one into an email and change the relevant parts, I’d rather say something like,

listen, I’ll be honest. there are a million other people like me, who are just as employable. but I’m serious when I say that I’m interested in working for you, and I’ll (for the most part) be more of an asset than a burden.
if you’re looking to reinvent yourself with one hiring, stop kidding yourself; you obviously have plenty of other shit to worry about. but, if you’re looking for someone who can pull their weight and sometimes do more than what is expected of him, hire me. cause I can, and I’m okay.

yeah, that’ll get me hired for sure.

I just shit the bed.