Lions and Tigers and UTEP, oh my!

Well, y'all, I'm not real sure what ol'Tommy West has planned for us this weekend... The question is: Who's the QB this week? We've had a couple of freak accidents which will leave us with another fresh face on Sat. I just hope to see the boys in blue play their hearts out, come what may. Isn't it weird us having night games so late in the year? I remember going to the fair after a game last year (or was it the year before?) but we won't have time for that this year. We will, however, have plenty of pre-game tailgate time, which I missed out on for the Labor Day Massacre vs Ole Miss. (Last home game was, of course, the Cooper Young Fest.)

Cute links

Famous Pairs [via LA.COMfidential] The Little Jew that Could 6 Feet writer/producer)

...what really sets Soloway apart is her unique, spot-on sense of humor mixed with political acumen, all of which she trains on herself, her people (the Jews), celebrity and pop culture, with side trips for bathroom hoverers, her sister Faith, why she hates dogs, and the most hilarious footnotes you'll ever read.

Shut the Fuck Up:

HANOVER, NH—According to students enrolled in professor Michael Rosenthal's Philosophy 101 course at Dartmouth College, that guy, Darrin Floen, the one who sits at the back of the class and acts like he's Aristotle, seriously needs to shut the fuck up. "Today he was going on and on about how Plato's cave shadows themselves represent the ideal foundation of Western philosophical thought," said freshman Julia Wald moments after class let out Monday. "I have no idea what Plato's ideal reality is, but I bet it doesn't include know-it-all little shits." Wald added: "If he uses the word 'dialectical' one more time, I'm going to shove my copy of The Republic down his throat."

Ay, carumba!

Looks like John Roberts will be with us for a while. Kids, that just goes to show you what knowing the right people can do for you! Yes, Justice Roberts made a swift rise to the supreme position of all the courts in the land, all on the merit of his relationships with influential people on both sides of the party divide. (Did you know he is also a beer in the UK?) Look at Tom DeLay, on the other hand: He hasn't made solid bipartisan friendships and he's on his way out. Actually, I think this is a case of something unethical being so common that the lone guy who gets caught feels like he's done nothing wrong because "Everybody's Doing It" ---ethical lines can get blurred pretty easily in the real world. Now we can all worry about who is up next on the Bushite roster of USSC Justice nominees. *shudder*

• Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel, who is a leader in the search for Justice O'Connor's successor. Ms. Miers, 60, was the first woman to become a partner at a major Texas law firm and the first woman to be president of the State Bar of Texas. At one point, Ms. Miers was Mr. Bush's personal lawyer.

Real-life quote from Bush (does he listen to himself speak??):

...the president said Monday, in response to a question about how close he was to choosing a successor, that "diversity is one of the strengths of the country."

Oh, yeah, and replacing a dead white conservative man with a living white conservative man totally promotes diversity!

I am SO THERE!

I am late the scene on this story, but I will not be late for the show! VooDoo Music Experience Coming to Memphis [via Rachel!] VOODOO MOVES TO MEMPHIS, TN HALLOWEEN WEEKEND PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT THE NEW ORLEANS RESTORATION FUND (NORF), A DONOR-ADVISED FUND OF ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY FOUNDATION (EIF) The Voodoo Music Experience will bring its quintessential New Orleans spirit to Memphis, the home of the blues and the birthplace of rock and roll. Memphis’ Tom Lee Park will serve as this year’s site for the two-day event, set to take place Halloween Weekend. This year’s Voodoo Music Experience will benefit the New Orleans Restoration Fund (NORF), a donor-advised fund of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF). ... highlights, IMO: My Chemical Romance Cake (yay!) Digable Planets Foo Fighters (what'd they do with Weezer?) Billy Idol The Decemberists The Bravery (were already going to be here, whatevz) Very exciting news for us. I hope lots of people come---spread the word! I am so behind the times these days. How did I not hear this already? I don't read the news, or watch it, or sometimes even listen to NPR. I am feeling like an old piece of gum that's been chewed up, spit out, and picked up off the floor and chewed up all over again. I want to be energetic, I truly do, but the only time I have any energy is at odd hours, like yesterday afternoon for a while---or a couple of evenings ago after 11pm. Who needs energy at that hour when you have to get up eight hours later? It's just stupid. My post-mid-year resolution (remember, I don't believe in New Year's resolutions) is to find more energy. Somehow, some way, I will get back to it. I think working out has an effect on my energy level; the days I work out hard I'm tired several hours after, but 6 or 8 hours later I'm ready to go again. But tired all the next day. I despise inconsistency, esp. in myself.

Where do you draw the line?

More importantly, where do I draw the line? That is, the line between public & private worlds. I was put in mind of this recently when I ran into a fellow-blogger recently (okay, I knew I was going to see him, in fact) but I didn't expect to have to explain our history to his date (whom I'd never even heard of). Ahem. While he took a phone call around the corner we were left to make girly small-talk---which I am only okay at---and she asked how we knew one another. I personally think that is a weird question, unless you are suspicious of your guy. So what else could I do? Lie to someone I'd never met, had no reason to be embarassed around? Nah. So I told her the embarassing truth: we both have blogs & word gets around, etc. Turns out, later in the evening under cover of loud music, when I told him she'd asked that---I just thought it was funny, which is why I'm telling y'all---he seemed to think I should have lied, by his comment. [In that case, why had he not made up a pre-emptive lie? Cause you know it might come up, and if you care you should let me in on these things. For future reference: let me in on the lie, or expect me to tell the truth!] Anyway, the next problem is this: she proceeded to ask me where I blogged. How stupid does it sound to say "It's a secret, as is my online identity" a) to someone you just met, duh!, and b) will never see again, when c) you don't really have anything personal on your blog anyway? Of course I told her. Days later, when I saw someone had googled "serrabee blogspot" I was like, Crap, now I have a stalker!---or whatever you call it in that case. And the crazy had been reading for over half an hour. Jeepies! as Velma would say. My blogging life passed before my eyes, as I wondered if this was the line I didn't want crossed, or if it was somewhere down the road? Then I realized it was my friend I'd recently told about my blog, based on my new theory that this is the best way for me to keep in touch with my friends these days. That is not nearly as weird as someone googling "blog salivary glad surgery" or some other things I've heard of from friends. But still, this experience led me to think it is better to keep my secret blogger identity a true secret, even from other bloggers. Except those who already know me, cause I can't help that. So I re-resolve not to post photos of me, or attend blogger gatherings, or anything of that nature unless I'm getting paid to write a book.

Jessica Simpson is Hawt

I have a friend who likes to talk about how hot Jessica is when we get together. I wonder why that is; now I think I may have figured it out. She doesn't have a bobble-head, and that makes her more attractive than a lot of the stars getting shoved down our throats. Have you noticed that celebrities are getting lollipop-headed these days? For some unknown reason I landed on QVC while channel hopping tonight & saw cute lip glosses being sold by Jessica Simpson. Price: 2 for $34.95 (for you guys who don't buy lip gloss, that is NOT a reasonable price). While I was transfixed by a combination of the pretty colors and the marvel of the customers' sheer idiocy I realized something: The poor bastards were buying it! But why? My theory is the lollipop head reaction. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, right? Well, for all the Lindsey Lohans and Olsen Twins out there, there have to be stars with proportional heads & bodies. Jessica S. is one; Tyra Banks is another. There must be plenty of others out there... it's just that, because of their freakishness, the lollipop heads are more visible. Anyway, I didn't buy the lip gloss. It all smells/tastes like dessert & I don't want to smell like a cupcake all the time. For me there's a very broad & distinct line between cute & cutesy. I think I am way too old for cutesy.

X-hausted

Yee-haw! It's the weekend! I am worn out from only 4 days of work (school, rather) and I don't know if it's the heat, my schedule, or a sign of premature aging. Or at least aging in one big leap in the past few months. I was shot down by one of my favorite profs today in class, which is sad mostly because I don't think he understood what I was saying. You know how when someone is talking and you talk right after them it seems like you're speaking to the point they made? When usually what happens is I'm thinking while the other person is talking (buzz, buzz) and haven't really paid any attention to anything after the first few words. I think with a different part of my brain than I listen with, so sometimes I can do both (like today). Anyway, I will just have to write a genius paper and make him think I'm right about something. Now, if I only had a topic.... I don't really appreciate all the freedom I've been given lately. All my resarch papers are on a topic of my choosing---which sounds great, until you have to choose 4 topics on 4 vastly different subjects and the field is wide open. I have a great fear of to-open fields (not like agoraphobia, but like storms on the prarie with nowhere to hide). Plus, I've started working one day a week & my job is to put together a newsletter. Out of thin air, apparently. Which I did okay with until I go to the point where I had to have content. Yikes. So I am sitting here, writing to you faceless people and eating gummi bears (white = pineapple; strange choice--so sour). This is the longest original post I've had in some time, and I apologize. I know many of you have as short an attention span as I do for these blog thingies.

Love the sin, hate the sinner

I feel like I'm getting religion from all sides lately. Not as in "getting it" like I comprehend it, or the human need for religious belief, or whatever it is. But with classes in history (of women in America), literature (Shakespeare), and the New Testament itself---I feel barraged by Christianity. I need a martini. It's so weird to be a stranger in your own land---apologies to Heinlein---which is how it feels to those of us left out of the cultural mix. If you grew up without religion, or television, or some other aspect of pop culture (yes, I just called religion popular culture), then you're missing some of the bits that make us able to relate to one another on a simple level. You are Other, not of this world. It's like trying to talk to someone much older---or younger, depending on your place in the space-time continuum---and talking at cross purposes. Whenever I talk to my octogenarian aunt, we miscommunicate on something or another. Just unfamiliar with each other's jargon, cadence, whatever; it's not because we're unfamiliar with each other, since we are the only family each of us has in Memphis. It's the culture barrier, or that we've been socialized so completely differently growing up in such different decades. And, she's a good Christian. Hee-hee.

Thoughts on a Monday

It's the worst feeling in the world to burn the roof of your mouth so badly you get bats-in-a-cave. I correct myself--biting your tongue so hard that you bleed is worse. Then it swells up so you bite it again. And again. That's way worse. But I still need to stop drinking my coffee so d#amn hot! I've recently scalded my hand, carrying a travel mug around, and now my mouth. Duh! * * * I watched a great piece on the making of Dazed & Confused last night. I s'pose it might be on the DVD version, which I don't own, as I am not one of those people who feels like owning every movie I like. There are so few I want to watch over & over (The Godfather trilogy, Napoleon Dynamite, and GWTW, to name a few) that it just seems wasteful. ANYway, that's what I did while I pretended to study. Why aren't they making more movies like that? Today's teem films are just lacking a little something (originality?) but I suppose they make up for it in nudity. * * * I'm starting to feel like a homeless person (one with a relatively new car, that is). Today I've eaten, showered, blogged, and (of course) studied all away from home. I would rather be like a turtle and carry my home around with me.

If only she were my granny!

September 19, 2005 Cannabis granny faces jail for pot plants By Philippe Naughton, Times Online Patricia Tabram, a cannabis-growing grandmother, said today that she expects to be sent to jail after police discovered four marijuana plants in her home. The 66-year-old, who says that she is "medicating" friends who are sick or in pain because conventional medicines do not work, compared herself to Emmeline Pankhurst, the pioneering suffragist, saying she was willing to face her fate. Mrs Tabram was given a six-month prison term, suspended for two years, in April when she admitted possessing cannabis with intent to supply from her home in East Lea, in Humshaugh, near Hexham, Northumberland. Mrs Tabram said today: "The police raided my home on Friday morning. Three officers came to the door and said ‘We’ve got information that you have been growing plants’. "They went right through my home and found four plants, each about 4ft high, which I have been trying to grow. The leaves were beginning to go brown and starting to die. I’ve never successfully grown a plant but I do not want to have to go to a criminal for my cannabis. "I realise I am going to go to prison," she added. "Emmeline Pankhurst had to go to prison three times before women got the vote so I am not going to be worried about it. "I have been thinking about things over the weekend and if the police charge me with anything except for ‘my own use’, then I am going to plead not guilty and go to trial. "I have decided to defend myself. I am going to be my own solicitor, my own barrister and my own criminal. I did not go to university but I have read many books about this country’s drug laws and when I get into court I am going to tell the judge and jury about the hypocrisy of our laws. "I’m going to do my best in court and if I get a bigger sentence, then tough Charlie. If I get the same judge as last time, then tough Charlie. "I’m just an old, grey, tubby grandma and I’m going to fight this." Mrs Tabram, who prides herself on her homemade herbal cookies, casseroles and soups, cuts an unlikely figure as a drug user. She has cooked up treats laced with cannabis for neighbours and friends in her village since being introduced to the Class C drug last year by friends and finding that it helped to alleviate the symptoms of depression, whiplash and neck pain. Northumbria Police were tipped off about the savoury smells and activities coming from Mrs Tabram’s bungalow and twice raided her house, in May and June last year. They seized 8.5oz (242g) of "skunk" cannabis - the most powerful variety - with a street value of £854 and she was charged with possession with intent to supply.

My recent invitations

[for a Friend's 28th birthday:] Do for dinner @ 7p.m., Drinks at dish, Dirty Martinis at Swig, 10 p.m. and then... Dancing at Raifords, and if you're still up for it... Denny's breakfast! [From Evite] We want to remind you that the Cooper/Young Shindig is coming up on Sat. Sep. 17th [that is a party after the festival] 93X & WIZARD’S PRESENT 93X FEST [Dude, anything Wizard's does is cool.] SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 @ MUD ISLAND AMPHITHEATRE [Remind me to go, dude!] FEATURING SHINEDOWN…WITH CROSSFADE…AND SPECIAL GUESTS DEFAULT, BREAKING POINT AND EGYPT CENTRAL [If anyone can tell me who these bands are, I thank you. Except I think the last---Egypt Central---are from Memphis and stole their name from a high school.] TICKETS ARE $27.50 PLUS HANDLING CHARGES at ALL TICKETMASTER OUTLETS [No freakin' way are all those stoner/metal heads paying $30 for this lame show!!]

Celebrate Citizenship Day

I have tried to be a good citizen, in my own way, but I'm not sure that all right-wingers would agree with me so much. What is a good citizen? Well, if you mean a world citizen, I think that means standing up for injustice all over the world---like Amnesty Int'l does---and being responsible consumer of the environmental resources---like the Sierra Club encourages; if you mean a good American, I think that means being educated and active concerning your government. Can you think of any aspect of your life, public or private, that is not affected by government? So in honor of Citizenship Day, let me recommend celebrating your citizenship in one or more of the following ways:

1. harass your representatives about something you believe in
2. write a guest editorial for your local neighborhood paper on some local issue (trust me, they'll print it, if just to take up space)
3. start an annoying email forward about something you don't like about your country but always assumed just couldn't be changed (it's better than the ones you've been victimized by for years)
4. participate in a protest, or organize one if you can't find one to suit you (if you can't think of anything to protest, you're a bad citizen)
5. link to this post to spread the word thru the blogosphere...

...that is, of course, assuming you belive as I do. If not, go ahead and post here---what do you think a good citizen is?

What's it to ya, anyway?

It's so strange that some people seem to keep coming back to this site even when I have little---or nothing---exciting to say. I've been working on a couple of things lately, one being school (as I have complained about a few times already, and we're only in week 3!), the other being an online magazine. Not one that calls itself as a magazine and is blatantly a blog, but a real magazine which is both small and free, in contrast to most of the things stuffed in my mailbox weekly. I read too much. I subscribe to three political magazines, the fluffy Memphis Magazine, read The Flyer weekly (or try to), and check out The Times Online every morning. It takes a lot of time to be a part of the informed citizenry our democracy depends upon. [Not a joke!] So when I design a magazine, you'd better believe it's going to be a short one! Keep an eye out for an exciting new magazine coming soon to the Memphis scene....

Blogger is conspiring against me

I know you've missed me. So it seems that every time I write a post, Blogger's just fine; it's only when I go to actually post it that it won't communicate with me. So I cut & paste my post into Word, but when I go back to publish it later, it doesn't seem so fun. There's something about the immediacy of writing & putting it out into the ether that makes whatever I write have some validity, or make some sense. To me, anyway. But take away the on-demand publishing factor & it just seems silly to post my thoughts of the moment 12 hours later. Every time I turned on the radio today, Judge John Roberts was deflecting questions of the US Sentaors. He's very good at it. I read an article in The Progressive Magazine about his history of writing briefs (since he hasn't been a judge long at all) and working for Ken Starr. There has GOT to be a better alternative. This is Bush's chance to make the highest court in the nation a little more representative of its citizens, and he's appointing one more upper middle-class white guy who will toe the Republican ideological line. He should sound like a worse candidate than he does, but I just can't get over how reasonable he sounded. I don't think for a second that he'll turn out like O'Connor and Souter to disappoint his appointing Republican President. I also don't think he'll be turned down for the position. Grrrrr.

Indeed there will be time to wonder...

From the dearth of posts here, it sure looks like I've been having a lot of fun lately! Don't believe it: I've been busting my a$$ in school and we're only 2 weeks in. Why am I not on top of things like I'd expected? I think I have it narrowed down to 2 distinct problems:

1. I do too much. I read everything, which my classmates don't seem to bother doing (every person I ask "did you read for today?" invariably answers "no" if not "hell, no!").
2. I have more than the usual # of profs to impress.

The second thing is a little problem I have, where I decide which prof is worth giving a sh!t about, and then concentrating on that class: doing all assignments, reading everything, and talking in class to make sure it shows that I'm reading. I figure these people are the ones who will write my recs for grad school (should that be an option) and I'd like to have their good opinions. But this semester, I have 2 of this type, as opposed to the usual 1 or none. One is the Shakespeare guy and the other is Advanced Comp, which is focusing on the canonization of the New Testament. Bored yet? Yeah, my life is pretty boring. I have stayed home the past 2 Fri. nights---I need to stop this before it gets out of hand!

I grow old... I grow old... I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled

Anywayz, I'm going out tonight. I've been wanting to check out Swanky's, except for the fact it's in East Memphis. So I'm not sure where I'll be, except that I won't be at Neil's watching Molly Hatchet perform.

Happy Birthday to Me

It is Serrabee's first birthday tomorrow. I love this song by Cracker. Play it & love it, too! Blogger was not happy with me this weekend, so I wasn't able to update. That's okay, as it was an uninteresting few days for the most part---trust me. I mowed the lawn, trimmed a few hedges, wrote a paper (yes, already!) and watched a crappy football game. The tailgate part was fun, though. Oh, and also had lunch with ex-b.f. #21. Or whatever # he is (was). We ate on the patio at Fresh Slices, which opened on Overton Park St. last year, and I thoroughly enjoyed my giant vegetable sandwich---roasted eggplant, squashes, & red pepper slices---yum!