Kingdom of the Madness

"I Am Not a Robot"

2011-10-12T09:06:00.004-05:00

So I thought of something that I want to post on this blog rather than just on Facebook.

This song by Marina and the Diamonds has been stuck in my head for a week now...and pleasantly so. The lyrical content is similar to Katy Perry's "Firework" but this is a much better pop song all around. The video I could take or leave, but it has a certain entertainment value (hand choreography did not die with Tiffany's career). Click the link and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_oMD6-6q5Y&noredirect=1

From the Mouths of Babes

2010-05-10T20:51:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine posted this video on Facebook. In short, it is awesome.

The Colts Lost the Super Bowl

2010-02-18T17:20:00.007-06:00

Back when I was updating this blog on a very regular basis, one of the storylines I followed oh-so-closely was the Indianapolis Colts' championship season. Seeing Dungy and Manning finally win "the big one" in Super Bowl XLI was truly a wonderful experience. As a fan, I could feel the monkey slide off the collective back of the Colts players, execs, and fans. I relished that victory for weeks. I saved tons of clippings from the Indianapolis Star, I watched the parade live on television, and I even watched a couple quarters of the Pro Bowl just so I could watch Peyton, Reggie, and Dwight play just a few more downs (even if they were meaningless ones). I wanted to soak it all in as much as possible. I didn't know if this sort of thing would ever happen in my life as a sports fan again.

My favorite moment of this championship run, however, came two weeks prior to the Super Bowl in the AFC Championship game. The Colts were going up against the New England Patriots for the third time in the last four post-seasons. Only this time, the game was taking place in the RCA Dome, far from the winter Foxboro conditions that had hampered the Colts high-powered offense in '03 and '04. Leading up to that game, I had the sense that, "This is finally our time, and it's only appropriate that we beat Tom Brady on our path to glory." My excitement level was so high that I even bought my first official jersey: Marvin Harrison's #88. All that enthusiasm turned to disgust in the game's 2nd quarter when Asante Samuel's Pick-6 gave New England a 21-3 lead. Peyton and the boys dramatically changed their posture in the second half, and the final score was 38-34 in favor of the Colts. The exhiliration I felt over that game ranks up in the Top 10 most joyous moments of my life. Definitely the biggest sports high I'd ever exprienced.

In a manifestation of karmic symmetry, the Colts loss in Super Bowl XLIV produced one of the lowest feelings I've ever experienced. Tracy Porter's Pick-6 late in the 4th quarter (pictured above) was not a mistake my team would overcome. Leading up to that game, I had so much personally invested in an Indy victory. The nation had sided with the Saints because of their feel good story, and I had grown sick of johnny-come-lately's and casual viewers of the NFL rooting against my team for two straight weeks. I kept telling myself that my team would show them what's what when the big game finally rolled around. In short, my pride was on the line. Sporting a brand new #18 jersey, I attended a Super Bowl party where only one other voice among dozens cheered on the Colts, and total strangers talked smack to me for 4 hours. In the end, a Purdue quarterback and a Hoosier corner put the dagger between the shoulder blades of our title hopes. My only consolation is that, given how the game actually played out, the better team won that night.

Two weeks later, the sting has transformed into a dull ache. But for over a week there, I felt ill and depressed. Maybe I'm too much of a fan. Whatever the case may be, I'm still equally aware of how difficult it is to reach the Super Bowl. Of how good the chances are Peyton's team may never reach the grandest stage again. And that, my friends, is what truly bums me out still...14 days after the last second of the season ticked off the clock.

Here's to next year.

Gilmore Randomness

2009-08-24T09:37:00.005-05:00

While browing the My Pictures folder on my laptop, I came across the following photo. I have no real memory of why I created it, but it is too random and ridiculous not to share with the world.

Apparently, about three years ago, I was going to post something concerning the Gilmore Girls. As for what sorts of words were to accomany this image, your guess is as good as mine.

I'm even harder pressed to explain this one.

Doostman Speaks

2009-07-17T12:19:00.003-05:00

As long as I'm not contributing anything to this blog, I might as well direct you to one that remains active. My good friend Dustin Lafferty (a.k.a. The Doost, Doostman, or El Doosterino...if you're not into the whole brevity thing) has been maintaining his own corner of Blogger for several months now. You might check out what he has to say from time to time, esp. if you're a sports fan. I have posted a link to Dustin's blog "You Should Apologize" on the right side of this page.

Pretty Much Just an Archive

2009-03-27T11:01:00.003-05:00

That's what the Kingdom of the Madness has basically become.
Once again, you can catch what I'm up to on Facebook. I'm on there multiple times a day.

Dark Campaign

2008-12-20T15:44:00.000-06:00

As many of you know, the only entertainment awards show I still give a rip about is the Oscars. But this Movie Year, I saw pretty much none of the movies that are getting the most Oscar buzz, and the more I read the hype about most of those films, the less I want to see any of them. Of the movies I DID see, "The Dark Knight" was the one I thought was most solid through and through. I'm not going to give a case here for why I thought that was. Instead I want to remind those of you who might share my opinion that films based on comic book aren't exactly popular with the Academy. Sure, they certainly stand more of a chance in this post-"Return of the King" world, but the very idea of a movie like "The Dark Knight" being nominated for Best Picture is outright laughable to the self-styled "serious" moviegoer.

The following video comes from Dark Campain,"an unofficial grassroots effort" aimed at bringing the movie the Oscar attention its organizers believe it deserves. Take a look at it and consider joining the campaign's group on Facebook. I just did.

I have witnessed the Obama-non

2008-11-05T09:07:00.003-06:00

Here's a random (and brief!) piece of reflection I just shared with a Facebook friend regarding last night's presidential election results. See what you think of it.

In thinking about how this election panned out, my mind keeps going to the NBA. It's like American is a struggling franchise that's had a losing regular season record and missed the playoffs several years in a row. It has a lottery pick as a result, yet only a modest amount of cap space available to dabble in free agency. They could try to solve their personel problems by bringing in a solid yet aging veteran (McCain) who's not likely to make a huge impact on the team's situation but the GM and coach know what they're getting. Or they could place their hopes on a high-profile draft pick (Obama) whose college career points to huge potential but whose ability to be a great pro isn't certain. The franchise, at the end of its rope after years of poor team performance, goes with the high potential rookie over the aging but solid veteran. The people in the front office are taking a risk, but if the draft pick lives up to his potentional, the best possible results will be realized.

I'm Still Alive...

2008-10-12T17:10:00.003-05:00

...and I'm really damn busy. So my blog is "mostly dead." Sorry, folks. At least it's still "slightly alive." Hopefully you're linked up to me through Facebook so you get at least random tidbits of what I've been doing, thinking, and feeling since the quarter started. To be honest, it's not likely that I'll resume regular posting before December.

FYI, I have a presentation due in a week, a German proficiency exam in just under two weeks, a brief respite and then the madness of finals; two, 15-20 page term papers to write and a lecture on Kant to give as part of my gig as a TA. On a note related to that last comment, I just finished my first ever round of paper grading, and I've learned I care far too much about my students. In the name of protecting my personal time and sanity, I cannot devote 30 or more minutes to every midterm I grade. God bless the prof I'm working with for splitting the pile with me.

Anywho...That's all I've got for now.

Two Generous Spirits

2008-09-08T09:14:00.002-05:00

First thing this morning, I received a surprise that blew my mind and overflowed my heart with joy. To honor the two generous spirits responsible for this blessing, I thought I would share the original e-mail containing the news and the response I sent back to them just moments ago. These two messages say it all (except for specific figures, which I have removed in the name of good taste).

Original Message

Good morning, Dave,

Perry will be depositing $x into your checking account today or tomorrow. This is a gift from us. We just felt like blessing you and Whit for your academic achievements. Love you!

Susan

Response
WOW! Thanks to both of you! That is a tremendous gift. The gift of $x you two gave me [two weeks ago] has already proved to be a great blessing in helping me cover my expenses. You can easily imagine how this substantially larger gift will do considerably more than help me make ends meet over the next several months. Your loving gesture has filled my heart with warmth and my eyes with tears.

I don't know what else to say other than that whatever academic success I have had would never have been possible without Susan and Perry Christian. Not only did you provide me with 6 years of excellent education in private schools, but I have come to depend on your guidance and hospitality throughout my higher education. And you did it all without ever being obligated to do any of it. I am proud to claim both of you as my parents. This substantial, monetary gift is but a visible symbol of the enormous amounts of love, help, and wisdom both of you have freely given me over the last 14 years. I hope I have been able to provide you with something of comparable worth in return, both up till now and in the future.

Much, much love,
Dave

Minor Changes

2008-06-29T13:40:00.003-05:00

To those who pay attention to my sidebars (perhaps at least one of you does):

-"Lyric Box" has become "Quotable Notables." The content of this feature will now include more than simply excerpts from songs. Any type of statement I find striking may now appear there.

-"The Last Twenty Movies I've Watched" has been cut back to "The Last Ten." This change has been motivated by the philosophy that "sometimes less is more." Once again, the reason for maintaining the sidebar at all is to keep my friends aware of what this lover of films has most recently viewed. This way, if you are inclined to ask my opinion about a movie you yourself have viewed or are contemplating viewing, my list can serve as an means for starting a conversation.

Regarding another recent change: I finally posted the reviews on Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy and Lullaby I previously promised to provide.

The Always Funny "Rampage"

2008-06-29T11:50:00.005-05:00

This Saturday, July 5th, UFC 86: Jackson vs. Griffin will be airing live on PPV. The main event is a Light Heavyweight Championship fight between Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, reigning champ and the #1-ranked, 205-lb mixed martial artist in the world, and Forrest Griffin, the first-ever 205-lb winner of the UFC's reality show The Ultimate Fighter and undeniably the most popular personality ever to come off that program.

Those who have followed the sport closely in recent years know that Rampage is also the reigning "King of the Interview." There is no one else in the sport of MMA as consistently laugh-out-loud funny as this man. Maybe no one else in sports period. To give a prime example of the man's wit, here is a comment he makes in the online preview video for Saturday's title clash (see 86.ufc.com):

"I'm the champion. I wanna keep my championship belt. I wanna be the best fighter that the UFC has ever seen. If anyone tell me I'm not gonna win this fight, they can kiss my natural black ass. And my ass is naturally black. I'm tellin' ya."

I just encountered this quote this morning and was compelled to share.

As a visual example of Rampage's other hilarious antics, here is a photo of him from the weigh-in of UFC 75:

Those are some colorful drawers.

Pictures of My Girlfriend...and Her Wonderful New Haircut

2008-06-24T10:15:00.004-05:00

It has occurred to me that many of you do not know what my girlfriend Elizabeth Coody looks like despite the fact we've been dating for several months now. Those of you on Facebook have had access to photos of her beautiful person but not others, due mostly to my own negligence in keeping this blog up-to-date. Without further delay, I present to you some high quality pics of a high quality woman.

Here Elizabeth is using the label on a stairwell door of the local art museum to identify her cultural and genetic heritage.

This shows the two of us striking a pose during a tasting at the local winery.

On June 13th, Elizabeth got the haircut she'd been desperately wanting for many months. She has received nothing but high praise since losing ten inches of her locks.

I have been especially pleased with her new look. Not only is it aesthetically pleasing (in other words: fly) but now her neck is exponentially more kissable and I no longer get ensnared in her hair when we nap together.

Finally: Her new 'do in action! Elizabeth pets a goat at the annual wool market held in Estes Park, CO.

Choke

2008-06-24T09:53:00.007-05:00

Just yesterday I completed my third Chuck Palahniuk novel of the summer. My friend Dave Winters, who is both an English teacher and the most loyal reader of Palahniuk's novels I know, told me that Choke is the funniest of the man's books. Compared to the other three books I've experienced, I'd have to say Dave is right.

Despite its laugh-out-loud level of funniness, I found myself disappointed with the overall story of the novel. That is, until I reached page 270. The turn that occurs on this page begins bringing all the threads and themes of this book together in an excellent way. It also provided me a laugh so profound that I cackled for two minutes straight and for another whole minute later in the day when I recalled what I had read hours before. You might say that the entire book builds up to this one fantastic gag. The remaning 23 pages clarify the "message" the author seeks to convey through this book. The ending of the book not only validates all the content that comes before; it is also satisfying in and of itself. 4 out of 4 stars.

As for a summary of the book's setting, I don't think I could do any better than the one provided on the back cover: "Victor Mancini, a medical-school dropout, is an antihero for our deranged times. Needing to pay elder care for his mother, Victor has devised an ingenious scam: he pretends to choke on pieces of food while dining in upscale restaurants. He then allows himself to be 'saved' by fellow patrons who, feeling responsible for Victor's life, go on to send checks to support him. When he's not pulling this stunt, Victor cruises sexual addiction recovery workshops for action, visits his addled mom, and spends his days working at a colonial theme park."

If my summer reading is to include yet another novel by Palahniuk, I anticipate that it will be Fight Club. It is Palahniuk's first and most famous novel, and Dave Winters tells me it is still his best. Given how much I have enjoyed books like Choke and Lullaby, Fight Club has to be pretty damn excellent. The only reason I've stayed away from it thus far is that I've seen David Fincher's film adaptation of the book many, many times.

One final tidbit about Choke: A film version of the novel will be released in late September.

Summer, Summer, Summer Ti-iiime!

2008-06-21T09:45:00.008-05:00

[Blogger's Note: Reviews for the last two books covered by this post were added on 6/29/2008.]

So I survived the end of my first year of Ph.D. classes. The last quarter went the easiest of this year's terms, though it wasn't a cake walk by any stretch. It took me pulling a near-all-nighter to finish my Heidegger final paper on time, but I did! I finished '07-'08 with a couple of A's and maintained the first 4.0 GPA I've ever had in my life. Next year's challenge will be whether or not I can maintain this level of performance while beginning my work as a Teacher's Assistant. I should also mention that I was surprisingly nominated and- even more surprisingly -elected to an At-Large position on the Ph.D. student council. I don't know what I'll be doing, but at this stage, I simply hope it doesn't take up too much time. :)

My summer officially began at 10am on June 6th when I turned in the aformentioned paper, and since then I've been a busy little bee. I've mostly been reading...that's right!...reading for pleasure. In the last two weeks, I've finished four books. Here are some concise "reviews" of the texts that have been occupying me during the summer thus far.

With World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, author Max Brooks transitions from the full-on humor of The Zombie Survival Guide to pure fiction. Despite the necessarily gruesome details that crop up from time to time throughout the book, the work as a whole may not qualify as "horror." Brooks spends most of his time talking, not about the specific antics of the undead, but about how the world's nations deal with the mass panic, rampant misinformation, and societal breakdown that follow the outbreak of zombie-ism on a massive scale. As the title suggests, the book is arranged in the form of interviews with persons who survived the Zombie Apocalypse. The list of witnesses span a diverse range, from a teenage computer hacker in Japan to a general in the South African army to the former Vice-President of the United States. Brooks' careful consideration of how the world might react to a global epidemic of disease and violence, coupled with his impressive attention to detail, make the not-so-distant future he envisions highly believable. This book is fantastic, far exceeding the great expectations I had for it. And given how much I enjoyed The Zombie Survival Guide, that's quite the compliment to (the man I have been told is) the son of Mel Brooks. 4 out of 4 stars.

I've just learned this morning that an abridged version of World War Z has been recorded as an Audio Book featuring a full cast of voice actors. Among the talent collected for this project are Alan Alda, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Das Boot's Jurgen Prochnow, John Turturro, my main man Henry Rollins, and Luke Skywalker himself: Mark Hamill. I'm going to have to check this out.

Survivor, published in 1999, comes from the pen of Chuck Palahniuk (pronounced paul-UH-nick), author of Fight Club. The story is told from the prespective of Tender Branson, whose lucrative stint as a religious personality in popular culture has just come to an abrupt and disreptuable end. Branson is the last surviving member of the apocalyptic Creedish cult colony. Having spent several years in the "outside world" as a missionary of sorts, Branson receives word that the Creedish leaders recently declared that "the end is here" and the entire colony "delivered" itself to God through mass-suicide. As one of the hundreds of Creedish who were sent out into the world, part of Branson's religious training is that, upon receiving news of the colony's demise, he should immediately deliver himself over as well. But he's enjoying his time in the world too much to end things so soon.

Branson's decision to defer self-termination turns his life into an everyday experience of guilt and self-condemnation. When he becomes the last Creedish known to be alive, Branson gets pulled in by a fast-talking agent who makes him the face of a pre-fabricated, multi-million dollar media campaign. As unsettling as the dramatic lifestyle change proves to be for Branson, it is not his only cause for concern. He suspects that several of the most recent Creedish suicides were not exactly voluntary. Once he begins receiving threatening phone calls, he becomes convinced that many of his religious kin have been murdered by someone with intimate knowledge of the cult and that Tender Branson is likely the killer's next victim. I really dug the outlines of Creedish life and teaching Palahniuk creates for Survivor. Yet, in regards to plot, I thought the second half of the book did not fulfill the potential developed in the first half. The book's climax was neverthless satisfying. 3 out of 4 stars.

Not only is this text both intellectually stimulating and written for the non-specialist, it will bring to light details about the story and characters of Tarantino's films you may have overlooked. There is also more than one quotation drawn from the original scripts...material that was cut before principle photography began but is nevertheless illuminating and enjoyable. The only reason(s) I am not giving the book a full four stars is that at least two of the essays are not as clear or organized as they should have been, and the volume as a whole contains far too many typographical errors for a book with not one but two editors. 3.5 out of 4 stars.

I enjoyed this book so much I read it cover to cover in about 36 hours. Better than Survivor or Rant (the other Palahniuk book I've experienced up to this point) yet not quite as satisfying a read as Choke. Nevertheless, an engaging novel. I think the book's greatest strengths are its basic premise and its narrative structure. Its only real weakness is that the polemic Palahniuk communicates through the story isn't articulated with as much skill as those in Choke or Fight Club. (I only have the movie version to draw on where the latter book is concerned. However, given what Palahniuk says in conversation with screenwriter Jim Uhls in a DVD commentary, the author seems to think that the film sufficiently captures the spirit of its source material).

On a related note, the thematic climax of the book seems, in no small way, to undercut its dramatic climax. With only ten or so pages left, I had the sense that the trajectory of the plot was going to require another act in order to provide the confrontation between protagonist and antagonists the book seemed to be building toward. To Palahniuk's credit, the climax he does provide stands as a genuine resolution. It simply is not of the sort I had anticipated, and my vivid imagination had me psyched up for one hell of a dramatic climax. :)

At the end of the day, this is the author's creation and not mine, and I respect his creative choices. The book he has written is excellent and well worth your time. 3.5 out of 4 stars.

The Colts' 2008 Schedule

2008-06-01T15:53:00.003-05:00

http://www.colts.com/sub.cfm?page=schedule

I was just checking this out the other day during a study break. Here are some quick observations from yours truly. In addition to the given Divisional match-ups against Jacksonville, Tennessee, and Houston, Peyton & Co. will:

+Play the entire AFC North: Cincinnatti, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Cleveland.
+Play the entire NFC North, including a season opener against Chicago, games against Minnesota and Detriot, as well as a clash with the now Favre-less Green Bay.

+Once again host New England (November 2nd's Sunday Night Game).
+Once again travel to San Diego (November 23rd's Sunday Night Game).
+Have their bye week early (Week 4). This disappoints me a little. I always prefer my team(s) to have a bye closer to mid-season.

Looks like another tough season for the boys in blue. We will have to play pretty much all the best teams our superior conference has to offer while still competing in the league's toughest division. Should be fun to watch!

...unless, of course, this is the year that Jacksonville finally passes us up. Then it will be horribly unfun to watch, and I will be tempted to gouge out my eyes rather than watch a second of those Jaguar jerkheads celebrating victory over my team. Then again, let's be honest, Jack Del Rio. You will never get the better of the Indianapolis Colts. All that really remains for history to reveal is what lame excuse you and your players will make up when we thump you this season.

The Skullet

2008-06-01T15:41:00.003-05:00

"It's Nature's mullet."

I said this on Thursday evening at my Ph.D. program's Spring Soiree. Elizabeth and I were still laughing about it the next day. If you're unfamiliar with this follicle phenomenon, there is a prime example of one to the left. For a more popular example, picture Hulk Hogan without his bandana.

Party in the back. Vacancy in the front.

Breaking the Extended Silence

2008-05-29T15:33:00.002-05:00

So it's been over three months since my last post. Sorry about that, folks. I've been updating the sidebars of this weblog regularly, but no new messages. For the last four weeks, that's mostly had to do with the fact that my laptop needs some work done on it. But the previous two months were due to pure negligence on my part.

To give you a few quick tidbits about what's happened to me since February 19th:

1) I've been dating a woman named Elizabeth for (officially) 2.5 months now. She's a beautiful, 24 year-old product of Shreveport, Louisiana, and she's currently enrolled in the MA program at Iliff School of Theology. I will certainly share more about her in the near future.

2) On June 6th, a week from tomorrow, I will turn in my last term paper of the quarter. That means my first academic year as a Ph.D. student will be over. I had a 4.0 GPA coming into this quarter (the first time in my life I've had this flawless statistic on my academic progress report), and the Spring course I've already completed all the requirements for should not detract away from that sterling factoid. The remaining paper will be a difficult exercise in philosophy and may very well return me to the land of the 3.9's.

3) My summer plans are simple: Study a lot of German so I can pass my program's required language exam in the fall; read, read, read; and visit Indiana for about a month. At this point, it looks like I will be making the trip home sometime during the first two weeks of July and then remaining in the Hoosier state until early August. An honest factor in my decision making process is whether I'd prefer to watch UFC 86 with my Indiana friends or UFC 87. :)

4) The new Indiana Jones movie is good. Not awesome, mind you, but a worthy addition to the series. I give it 2.5 out of 4 stars, and 3 out of 4 starts on my guilty pleasure scale. If you're interested in seeing it but not sure if you should shell out the seven to ten dollars, I encourage you to shell away. I more strongly encourage you to watch No Country for Old Men on DVD. It's every bit as good as it's been hyped up to be.

5) I've discovered a fantastic (progressive?) metal band: Between the Buried and Me. Their music makes me think of Dream Theater, Sepultura, and Radiohead seemlessly united into one impressive entity. Since January, I've digested three of their albums and have enjoyed each one thoroughly.

That's enough randomness for now. FYI, I check my Facebook account every day. Contact me their if you'd like to re-establish contact with me.

The Power of the Lesnar

2008-02-19T10:33:00.003-06:00

On February 3, I met a friend at a local, non-Hooters watering hole to view UFC 81: Breaking Point. The main event featured an interim heavyweight title collision between former Pride Heavyweight Champion Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and 2-time former UFC Heavyweight Champion Tim Sylvia. Despite their supposed headliner status, images of Nogueira and Sylvia made only brief appearances in adds for the event, if they made any appearance at all.

That is because all the hype for the event was centered on the UFC debut of former pro-wrestling superstar Brock Lesnar. Prior to UFC 81, Lesnar had only fought one MMA bout which, to his credit, he won in under 2 minutes. However, given the fact that his victory came at the expense of an obvious tomato can (who was himself a last-minute replacement for Korean circus attraction Hong Man Choi), many hardcore mixed martial arts fans vocally protested teh fact that a 1-0 "sports entertainer" was being pushed so hard so soon. The UFC brass buttressed the fans' inclination to cheer against Lesnar when they matched him up against one of the organization's former heavyweight champions Frank Mir. For many, Lesnar was the UFC's shameless attempt to court Pay-Per-View buys over Super Bowl weekend by bringing in someone that WWE fans unfamiliar with MMA would likely want to see irrespective of his fighting credentials. By contrast, offering support for Mir became a means for established fight fans to show their solidarity with real athletes.

Moments before Lesnar and Mir locked horns, I was still marveling at Lesnar's physical presence inside the Octagon. Now I closely followed Lesnar's entire 2-year run in the WWE, and saw him performing at 290 lbs on pretty much a weekly basis. But when you always see him going up against the 500-lb Big Show or even the 310-lb Hulk Hogan, the sheer mass of Brock Lesnar is easily lost in context. Two weeks ago, Brock weighed in at 265 lbs- the maximum one can weigh and compete as a heavyweight -and I betcha he cut a few pounds to make that. Frank Mir tipped the scales at a solid 255 but the staredown during the referee's final instructions made it clear the ex-champ was comparatively undersized. Adding further mystic to Lesnar's physicality, reports circulated in the days before the fight that the UFC had to special order XXXL gloves for him because the XXL gloves were so tight on his hands that scissors were required to remove them. In the seconds before the opening bell rang, the PPV production team made sure to showcase the WWE personalities at ringside, which included Stone Cold Steve Austin and known MMA aficianado The Undertaker.

Lesnar took the center of the cage with a mix of intensity and control. He took Mir down quickly and began reigning down heavy punches and hammer fists. Mir, a Brazilian jujitsu black belt, tried to pull himself close to Lesnar and get his massive opponent in his guard lest he be decapitated by strikes. While tucking his head close in to Lesnar's chest, Mir (according to referee Steve Mazagatti) received several illegal blows to the base of his skull. The ref calls time out, stands the fighters up, and instructs the judges to deduct one point from Lesnar on their score cards. The fight has only been going on for about 50 seconds.

Upon resuming action, Lesnar lands another fast takedown and Mir is once again attempting to pull guard. Lesnar is so damn strong that he simply pushes Mir flat on his back. Mir tweaks his strategy and makes an attempt to catch one of Brock's arms in a submission hold. He fails. Mir makes a second attempt at an armbar and Lesnar defends by standing straight up with his legs spread wide. The crafty Mir makes an instantaneous adjustment and wraps his entire person around Lesnar's leg, simultaneously sweeping Brock off his feet and securing a leg lock. Brock isn't too proud to tap before his knee is ripped apart. Mir spoils the former WWE champion's UFC debut, winning by knee bar. For all the fight's intensity and drama, it ends just 1 minute and 30 seconds into Round 1.

I must confess I was pulling for Mir in this fight but not for the sorts of reasons discussed above. Mir is a unique fighter: a big heavyweight with slick jujitsu. I like that about him. He's also cheerable because he's on the comeback trail. Not long after he won the title in the summer of '04, he was in a motorcycle accident and suffered a broken femur. The UFC eventually stripped Mir of his belt when it became unclear whether he would ever fight again. When he did resume fighting, Mir looked unimpressive and sometimes out of shape. Because success came to him easily early on, he's never had the greatest work ethic. Rushing back from a near career-ending injury didn't help his performances either. Before the Lesnar fight, Mir blew through Antoni Hardonk in under 2 minutes and fans began speculating that the "old" Frank Mir was back. This story felt too good for me to cheer for Lesnar over Mir.

Brock looked good though, even in defeat. He's ridiculously strong, amazingly fast for a man his size, and his solid amature wrestling background was evident in this fight. He's training with the same camp in Minnesota that former UFC Lightweight Champion Sean Sherk trains in, and he displayed a humility and poise in his post-fight interviews that I never saw him exhibit during his pro-wrestling career. The UFC also gave him a tough match-up in his debut. Wrestlers new to MMA are typically susceptible to submissions and Mir is one of the best submission artists in the division. Brock Lesnar has a future in the UFC if he maintains humility and dedication in his MMA training. Expect the UFC to give him an "easier" opponent in his next bout, like an average stand-up fighter with little to no ground game. Hopefully the casual fans saw how dominant Brock was for 85 of 90 seconds, and will pay to watch him again. They certainly paid up this time. Estimates are that UFC 81 did 650,000 PPV busy, making in the 3rd most watched UFC PPV ever.

Oh yeah...Nogueira defeated Sylvia with a guillotine choke in the third round of the main event to become the first man to hold a championship belt in Pride and the UFC. If you were looking solely at the mainstream sports media, you would have no idea that Nog's amazing comeback performance ever took place.

Undefined Fascination

2008-02-11T23:27:00.000-06:00

I'm sure the all-too-regular apologies I offer for not updating this blog frequently enough have grown stale. I've had several topics I've felt worth mentioning recently: I visited Casa Bonita (the Disneyland of Mexican restaurants), I was in the same room as Bill Clinton, I witnessed former WWE Champion Brock Lesnar make his UFC debut, I decided in a moment of intense self-deprication that I would like to be rid of my literal skin, and I saw No Country for Old Men just the other day. However, I've not shared any of this within the forum of the Kingdom, so maybe a series of bite-sized posts is on the way.

For the moment, I would just like to share the lyrics to a song I've been listening to quite a bit over the past several weeks. I can't precisely identify what it is I like so much about this song. All I know is the headspace it puts me in seems like a place I need to be right now.

The song is "40 Miles from the Sun" off of Bush's album The Science of Things. Bush is a band I've liked a lot for a long time but, for whatever reason, don't talk much about...even with myself. Here are the words, just to give you all a sense of what it may be that's put the hook in me as of late.

"there is nowhere left to hide
there is nothing to be done
no people to be saved
no pets we've never named

40 miles from the sun

as darkness craves the mind
we come undone without our pride
no time on earth to come
all the pleasures just begun

40 miles from the sun

in our coats beneath the layers
wash my skin of all the hate
we should sleep late
everything just kind of grates

40 miles from the sun

i need to lose to make it right
i'll confront the stars tonight
i will babble i will bite
you'll never know how much you shine

40 miles from the sun"

As I prepared to write this post, I wondered whether the image of being 40 miles from the sun resonates with me in the same way the last few lines of the following Soundgarden song have always resonated with me. For twelve years, I've continually turned to this song in moments of mellowness or even sadness...times when "something" seems out of joint or has failed to live up to expectations. "Boot Camp" has always stood for me as a reminder that even when the world seems irredeemably confounding, or even outright shitty, there remains a flicker of hope in me. Like "40 Miles from the Sun" the descriptions are poetic and most the lines have their impact in the absence of any clear logical sense. Again, it just transports me to a place most songs can't.

"I must obey the rules
I must be tame and cool
No staring at the clouds
I must stay on the ground
In clusters of the mice
The smoke is in our eyes
Like babies on display
Like angels in a cage
I must be pure and true
I must contain my views

There must be something else
There must be something good
Far away
Far away from here
Far away
Far away from here
?I'll be here for good?
For good"

I can only speculate as to why either of these songs call out to me at this moment in my life.

Self-Deception in Self-Improvement

2008-01-25T11:32:00.000-06:00

[Blogger's Note: I just reread this post and corrected several grammatical errors and other typos along the way. Now it should be easier to get past my writing flaws in order to consider the ideas I set forth. Though I use myself as an illustration of what I am describing, my primary aim is to articulate something the reader can identify in her or his own life experience. 1/27/2008]

Problem #1: Everyone has something they want to change about themselves that they spend too much time worrying about or trying to correct.

Problem #2: Everyone has something they should change about themselves that they spend too little time worrying about and trying to correct.

If I've understood the human condition accurately, not only are these two statements true, but it is also the case that it is our consistent inability to categorize our personal attributes properly that produces our failure to direct our attention and energy towards their most appropriate object. In other words, those of us concerned with becoming "better people," struggle to identify those aspects of our personality or behavior that we should change if we are to accomplish our goal of being less selfish, more sensitive to others, more likeable or however you chose to define "better" in your own situation. Speaking for myself, my failures of self-assessment nearly always find their source in one of two dispositions: need for approval or denial.

My need for approval typically generates Problem #1. Whether I have a specific person in mind, a group of people, or some vague sense of society in general, I believe that I would be regarded as "better person" if I changed certain aspects of my character or appearance. I feel pressure to change myself in a way I would not if it were simply "up to me," even if the immediate consequences prove more harmful than beneficial. For example, the reason I have permanent scar tissue on my left shoulder is because I suffered a severe sunburn while trying to become more tan. Because to be tan in our present culture makes one more attractive and thereby "better." I put myself in a situation that conventional wisdom tells us to avoid (exposing fair skin to direct sunlight for several hours) because I convinced myself that something I wanted to do was really something I should do and thus convinced myself that what I "had" to do was worth the potential risks.

My denial typically generates Problem #2. During rare moments of completely honest self-assessment, I will recognize deeply rooted behaviors and attitudes that I must deal with if I am to embody my own level-headed definition of a "better person." Most often, however, denial trumps realization. These revelations are either rationalized into being lesser concerns or they are just willfully repressed. For example, there is an inherent hypocrisy in the fact that I am devoting my professional life to the study of theology and yet I have spent the bulk of my adult life being chronically unchurched. When I am being honest, I know I am continually putting myself at risk of turning my religious commitments into purely academic pursuits as I continually sharpen my intellectual skills but allow my spiritual sensitivities to dull. Whatever connection one might draw between church involvement and spritual sensitivity, the fact remains that Dave Scott is big on theological education but small on personal piety. Yet, what I often tell myself, is that this is not something I should change but it is something I want to change because my evangelical upbringing has conditioned me to believe that church attendence and spiritual authenticity are inseparable. My interior pangs of conscience are reinterpreted as exterior pressures.

But where my true angst arises, where the enormity of the combined power of Problems 1 & 2 is profoundly sensed, is when I feel the urge to change something about myself but I cannot decide how to classify that personal aspect and hence cannot conclude whether I should commit myself to change. My existential anxiety mounts when I consider the serious consequences that a faulty judgment would create. To want to change solely for the approval of others drives one into inauthentic existence or, even worse, dehumanization. To deny change that would truly make one better drives one into egotistic existence or, even worse, spiritual cancer.

I am seeking to identify the proper resources for assessing some of my own urges toward change. Complicating things further is my intuition that these resources are not uniform from person to person nor are they constant for any particular person. The urgency of addressing these matters arises from my growing sense that there might be something fundamentally awry in myself. I need to know if it is truly something about myself that should change if I am to be a better person or if I only want it to change because I feel some deep-seated pressure from unidentified others to conform to their (as yet) unarticulated expectations.

Perhaps in a subsequent post I'll share some specifics on what I'm referring to in this last paragraph. For the moment, however, I'm curious to see what kind of reactions I may get concerning the anthropological/psychological framework I've just articulated. In short, I've attempted a sort of "phenomenology of self-improvement."

Just food for thought.

NFC Championship Fun

2008-01-19T19:17:00.000-06:00

I just encountered this article on the NFL homepage. Quite entertaining irrespective of your level of appreciation for professional football.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d80614a1d&template=with-video&confirm=true

More Revisionist History...and a Couch!

2008-01-15T22:36:00.000-06:00

So let's get the bad news out of the way. The Colts lost their first playoff game at home Sunday. They didn't look awful but they certainly looked far from good and they lost to the Chargers for the second time this season. No AFC Championship rematch with the Patriots, no opportunity to repeat as Super Bowl champions. Nada. 'Nuff Said.

A second matter: I HAVE A COUCH!!! I bought it on Thursday and it was delivered on Friday morning. I've already had friends over three times since I purchased it, and I'm relieved that I can now invite people over to my place without hesitation. Next up: A new bed!

Finally, I wanted to share a few more items from Non Campus Mentis: World History according to College Students. In the book's conclusion, Prof. Anders Henriksson states that, "It is probably safe to assume that every American college freshman knows the following:

1) At some point in the distant past the United States fought a war of independence against a major European or Asian power. An extraordinary Tea Party was a factor.

2) George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, John Kennedy, and Richard Nixon served as presidents of the United States. Washington was the first president and Lincoln also served a long time ago, while the latter two were in the twentieth century. Ronald Reagan and George Bush the First were more recent occupants of the Oval Office. (Jimmy Carter is already off the radar screen for more than a few young scholars of the 2000s.)

3) The United States still suffers from the horrors of its slaveholding past, whenever that was. The Civil War, which took place some time between 1750 and 1930, was mixed up with this.

4) Adolf Hitler (a foreigner of some kind) was a very bad man.

5) There was at least one World War, but absolutely not more than three."

Here's a comment about 20th Century Asia:

"Dim El Sum ruled as 'Head Coucho' of North Korea. China had so many Chinese that forced birth patrol became required. This is where people are allowed to reproduce no more than one half of themselves. Manifest Destiny is China yarning to embrace Thai Won as a kind of imperialist forplay."

And, to conclude, here are some reflections on the Civil Rights movement to get you ready for MLK Day:

"The Civil Rights movement in the USA turned around the corner with Martin Luther Junior's famous 'If I Had a Hammer' speech. Martian Luther King's four steps to direct action included self purification, when you allow yourself to be eaten to a pulp. The wealing and dealing of President Lynda B. Johnson was another important factor."

Bob Sanders: NFL Defensive Player of the Year

2008-01-07T21:11:00.000-06:00

Congratulations to the human missile! It's nice to see the man receive some national recognition for all those hard hits. Like I've been saying nearly all season, "Bob Sanders will smack you in the mouth!"

http://www.nfl.com/news/story?id=09000d5d805cea17&template=with-video&confirm=true

Don't lose sight of this accomplishment in the midst of all the Patriots love goin' on these days. Also remember that Reggie Wayne, not Randy Moss, won the receiving crown this year. Go Horse!

Refashioning the Dave

2008-01-06T22:47:00.000-06:00

As my regular readers likely know already, I am back in Denver. I'm beginning my second term here at U. of Denver/Iliff SOT, and I've found that the extended winter break oxidized significant portions of my brain. Though I read three books while back home in Indiana, they were all read for entertainment. Now that I've begun an extended period of reading nothing but Plato and Kant (or writings about those two legendary thinkers) I'm realizing how badly my brain has fallen out of shape in 5-6 weeks of lowered intellectual strain.

That makes me real nervous about how 2-months of nearly unopposed atrophy has impacted my muscles, heart, lungs, and so forth. I had set relatively high fitness goals for myself last term and failed miserably to meet a couple of them. My weightlifting was as complete as it's been in years, but I failed to target my midsection as I'd originally intended AND I went yet another year without incorporating any cardio into my weekly routine.

This term things will change. Not drastically, but significantly nonetheless. It's not a New Year's resolution, but more like a new school year resolution that got put off for 4 months. I'm not crazy enough to try to go from undersized offensive lineman to iron man participant in a few weeks. I do, however, need to improve my overall fitness and body composition for my own health and my own sanity.

I'll be 26 years old soon and I'm already having minor pain in my load-bearing joints. I inherited my mother's bad knees and my father's considerable girth. Hurting my right knee two years ago only added to this problematic equation. After years of compensating for bad knees I have conditioned to bear my weight only sporadically during my adult life, my hips are finally feeling the strain and my ankles aren't doing much better. Dropping my weight by 20 or more pounds is practically a necessity at this stage and cardio is the best way to make that drop happen.

Then there's the ever-present social pressure. Every 2 or 3 years, I am strikingly reminded of how important physical appearance is in our culture and social networking. Your body is usually your foremost piece of currency, and while it's psychologically unhealthy to want to look like a movie star or a professional athlete, it's unwise to let your body become an emulation of John Goodman instead. For the last 18 months, I've been leaning substantially more towards the Goodman side of things than the Brad Pitt/Bob Sanders side. In 2004, I realized this and spent the next 8 months getting into the best shape I'd been in since I was in high school. I got new clothes and shoes and started wearing cologne on a regular basis. Increased female interest, kisses, and even a steady relationship soon followed.

Candler Spring Banquet 2005. 2.5 years and 25 pounds ago.

In 2008, I'm wising up again. For Christmas, I received mostly new clothes I hand-picked myself. I plan to get new footwear by the end of the month and, once I've lost a few pounds, I'm going to restock my deteriorating jeans collection. To state my thought process in a nutshell, I want to take control over those less conventionally attractive aspects of my appearance that can be taken control of. The melanin-free skin is a problem I've learned the hard way (on several occasions) that I can't fix. My teeth are naturally crooked and genetically a bit yellow. And I can't alter the fact that I have a large head or that I walk like Shrek. But I can do a hell of a lot more to improve my general appeal by trimming much of the extra baggage and occasionally draping myself in something more stylish than a Slayer T-shirt.

I know I'm not an ugly man. Field tests have shown that women Dave Scott finds attractive can indeed find him to be handsome in return, yea even sexy. However, I'm presently interested in increasing the likelihood of that happening again. I want that little extra sumpin', sumpin' that might push the potential patron from ambivalence over into full-blown interest. The recent pain in my legs and disappointment in my heart are pushing me into my next phase of self-improvement, of refashioning myself into an upgraded version of who I already am. My laugh, my brains, and my sympathetic nature will still be what keeps 'em hanging around but getting 'em to hang around requires drawing 'em in first.

Time to beef up the magnetism, Mr. Scott.

The Interpreted Past

2008-01-01T23:21:00.000-06:00

One item I received for Christmas this year was Non Campus Mentis: World History According to College Students. In this book, Professor Anders Henriksson draws together some of the most entertaining and absurd test answers and paper excerpts he (and a few of his colleagues) has collected over several decades of teaching undergraduate history courses. Each section of the book pertains to a major period in Western history. I'm not finished with it yet but here is a primo selection of the humorous offerings I have read thus far:

*Plato invented reality. He was teacher to Harris Tottle, author of The Republicans. Lust was a must for the Epicureans. Others were the Vegetarians and the Synthetics, who said, "If you can't play with it, why bother?"

*Christianity finally became official after the Emperor Constantine's famous Decree of Consternation. Constantine became a Christian himself after being persued by a neon cross on the battlefield. The entire city of Constantinople rose up with a tremendous ejaculation every time the emperor came.

*Medieval people were violent. Murder during this period was nothing. Everybody killed someone.

*The crusades enlarged opportunities for travel. These were a series of military expaditions made by Christians seeking to free the holy land (the "Home Town" of Christ).

*Finally, Europe caught the Black Death. The bubonic plague is a social disease in the sense that it can be transmitted by intercourse and other etceteras.

-It was spread from port to port by inflected rats.

-It was then passed around by midgets.

-Victims of the Black Death grew boobs on their necks.

-Death rates exceeded one hundred percent in some towns.

*This was the beginning of Empire when Europeans felt the need to reach out and smack someone.

*Columbus came to America to install rule by dead white males over the native peoples.

*John Calvin Klein translated the Bible into American so the people of Geneva could read it.

*Deism was the belief that God made the world and then stepped on it. In Deism God has no direct influence on daily life, but just watches like a movie, eating his candy and munching his popcorn.

*[Concering the Industrial Revolution] The social structure was Upper Class, Middle Class, Working Class, and Lowest Poor Scum.

*Sigmund Freud was a shrink who came up with sex reasoning. He said that if the mind says not to have sex and the will will not listen, then the mind will go crazy. Leaders of the women's movement included Florence Nightengail, Susan B. Anthony, and Crystal Pancake. German feminists furthered the whatnot of women. Sufferance was the major goal.

-Feminists argued that sex outside the family would make you go blind or lose your memory.

*Liberals insisted on a lily fair economy where it was hands off the lily.

*The major cause of the Civil War is when slavery spread its ugly testicles across the West.

*Picasso was the famous artist who painted the Mona Lisa. Benito Mussolini was an artist who became overly famous.

*Oscar Wilde, the author of Doreen Gray, was probably the riskiest personage in England at this time.

*Friedrich Nietzsche was a German movie producer who wrote Triumph of the Will and Superman.

Big Pimpin'

2007-12-23T17:06:00.000-06:00

In a very real sense, Jay-Z's song "Big Pimpin'" has long held a special place in my heart. Hearing it reminds me of the road trip my friends Josh, Aaron, and I took the summer after our high school graduation. As we made the long drive from Indianapolis to San Diego, we were regularly scanning the radio dial, trying to find a quality station in each new broadcast area we entered. Without ever intentionally seeking it out, this browsing continually brought our eardrums into contact with the distinctive tones of "Big Pimpin'."

I recall encountering the mega-hit at least once a day for four consecutive days. The three of us kept one another entertained during our extended sessions in the car by (among other things) doing our best "white boy" renditions of this song. I know in retrospect why I associate that track so closely with our road trip, even though none of have ever listened heavily to urban musical stylings. Still, after the seven-plus years that "Big Pimpin'" has been around, I've heard the song in its entirety no more than twice. And yet its chorus continues to pop into my head no less than once a month, despite the fact that I never knew the actual lyrics of even this part of the song until just recently. When I had to make up the lyrics I didn't know while rehearsing it for my own amusement, here's how I sang the chorus:

Big pimpin', spendin' cheese.
We be big pimpin' on B.L.A.D.s
We be big pimpin', oh yessiree.
I said a jigga, jiggamon, ABCFG.

I was always pretty confident the first two lines were correct, seeing as Aaron always corroborated what I heard in those places. My perceived accuracy concerning Line 2 only intensified my curiosity over what in the world "B.L.A.D." stood for. That summer my theory (constructed with reference to absolutely nothing outside my own mind) was that the acronym stood for "Beautiful Ladies of African Descent." I've always been proud of coming up with this possibility because it's genuinely creative, actually plausible, and I came up with it rather spontaneously. My recent decision to Google the official lyrics was prompted by the random return of my curiousity over the true significance of B.L.A.D. Here's what my research produced concerning the chorus:

We doin.. big pimpin, we spendin cheese
(Check em out now)
Big pimpin, on B.L.A.D.'s
We doin.. big pimpin up in N.Y.C.
It's just that Jigga Man, Pimp C, and B-U-N B

My biggest surprise was finding out that I had heard "jiggamon" correctly, although I didn't know there was actually a person who sometimes went by the handle "Jigga Man." I'm assuming Jigga Man is Jay-Z himself, but I can't be sure because that's not one of the three facts I actually know about Jay-Z. 1) He has his own line of champagne. 2) He retired for like 2 days. 3) For many years now, he's had regular access to Beyonce's revered and coveted booty.

As for Pimp C and B-U-N B, I suppose they are the less famous MCs backing up Mr. Z in the song. And you'd have to be numb in the skull and the nuts to not know the expanded correlate of N.Y.C. But what about B.L.A.D.s? Since my reading of the officialy lyrics did nothing to clarify this acronym for me, I Googled it next.

All this search brought to my attention was that, in the world of animal medicine, B.L.A.D. stands for "Bovine Leukocyte Adhesions Deficiency." Unless Jay-Z and his boys enjoy Big Pimpin' on cows suffering from faulty immune systems, B.L.A.D. must stand for something else in the context of the song. Is my previous theory right? Or is "B.L.A.D.'s" just a novel way of referring to "black ladies" or, more generally, "beautiful ladies"?

Ideas anyone?

Love That Nietzsche

2007-12-13T08:47:00.000-06:00

[Blogger's Note: This is the last post I had backlogged from my extended period of silence.]

I already know that the defining experince of my first term of doctoral course work shall always be my intellectual and personal struggles with the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche. I previously shared the problems I had encountered in the Nietzsche seminar, stemming from a potent combination of difficult texts and the unfortunate structure of the course itself. The good news is that I survived all of this madness by achieving a grade of "A," and I arrived at an understanding of my instructor as an intellectual antagonist instead of a personal adversary.

The news that cannot be sugarcoated is the hellfire I had to pass through just to finish my final projects for that class. That's right, I said projects plural. Over the course of two weeks, I devoted an exorbatant amount of time to reading and reflecting on Herr Nietsche's writings as I strived to complete both a 20-page term paper and a take-home final exam. With no reading week provided by the quarter system, the time available for work was at a premium. To cut to the heart of the hellacious process I underwent to finish all of this, I needed a 5-day extension to finish my term paper and still had to spend nearly the entire day of Thanksgiving working on it, not finishing the damn thing until 5:30am the next morning. It was the second most stressful academic experience I've ever had, and I can unequivocally identify the Nietzsche seminar as the hardest class I've ever taken.

The primary reason this course kicked my ass so much was the great challenges Nietzsche himself posed to me. I don't mean simply that his writing proved difficult to understand, which is certainly true. I also mean that, in taking Nietzsche seriously rather than dismissing him with stock critiques, Nietzsche got to me. He successfully challenged deeply held values and patterns of meaning according to which I've made sense of my own life for years, irrespective of whether those values and meanings are rooted in Christianity or elsewhere. I've certainly not been provoked into apostacy but particular pre-existing doubts I held and critiques I levied against my inherited religious tradition have been intensified by this experience. The last week of classes I underwent a novel event: I become physically ill, not over the stress and anxiety of finishing an important assignment (that came the following week), but because the power of an polemic hit me like a steel-toed boot to the groin. Thus the completion of the aforementioned projects proved to be a struggle with self and worldview in addition to a challenging academic endeavor.

Now three weeks removed from the completion of all that maddening business, I find myself increasingly glad to have gone through it. One of Nietzsche's most quoted statements is that "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger." I now see that the reason survival of this sort makes one stronger in a deep and meaningful a sense is that the very act of overcoming a formidable challenge requires us to draw upon potent and effective resources that, once tapped, we cannot help but draw upon with great regularity henceforth. The person that overcomes a threat also overcomes that previous constitution of the person that was threatened. I overcame the challenges Nietzsche posed to me last quarter, and I feel enriched as a result, now aware of resources in myself I had come to overlook or had failed to notice prior. The question that remains for me is whether I shall finally regard Nietzsche's writings themselves as threats to be overcome or resources to continue drawing upon in other ongoing battles. I suspect the latter shall be my course.

For those that may be interested in a relatively brief exposition of the materials that challenged me, see the post below. It contains one of my responses from the take-home final. Once I had this response finalized, I truly became confident that I understood much of what Nietzsche was up to and that I actually had a chance of finishing my assignments on time.

Nietzsche in 1200 Words

2007-12-12T19:36:00.000-06:00

[The question being answered here: Explain in as much detail as is appropriate and with appropriate quotes or textual reference what Nietzsche means by the “will to power” and how that concept is closely related to such terms as “genealogy,” “valuation,” “transvaluation,” “ressentiment,” “higher man”, and “overman.” To what degree are these terms closely interconnected throughout Nietzsche’s writings, and what significance might you assign to each of them in other than pure Nietzschean language? A legend explaining title abbreviations is provided at the end of this post.]

________________

Nietzsche’s aggressive polemic against the traditions of Christian morality and Western metaphysics may be understood, in part, as a sustained effort to “remain faithful to the earth” (TSZ 188). Nietzsche sees the prevailing philosophy and religion of his time as repudiating the earth through “a moral-optical illusion” (TI 484). They construct an idealized ‘true world’ in direct contradiction to the ‘actual world,’ decrying the latter as a world of mere appearances. He unfavorably portrays such thinkers as “tarantulas” (TSZ 211) and “spiders” (TSZ 237) that spin elaborate webs of truth, meaning, and purpose in their efforts to define the ‘true world.’ But as long as one casts the world as a negation of another, Nietzsche contends, the motivation is not a love of the truth; it is “a profound vexation at reality” (AC 582).

Nietzsche’s distinctive term the will to power denotes the ceaseless, dynamic interplay of commanding and obedient forces operating within the world. Through his declaration that, “This world is the will to power—and nothing besides!” (WP 550), Nietzsche characterizes each of the individual forms which constitute the world as a manifestation or an instance of the will to power. Because everything that exists is an instance of the will to power, all the events of the world are a becoming master in which interacting forces subdue or are subdued by one another. Nietzsche states, “Whatever exists, having somehow come into being, is again and again reinterpreted to new ends, taken over, transformed, and redirected by some power superior to it” (GM 513).

Thus the history of any thing—be it an idea, custom, etc.—may be understood as “a continuous sign-chain of ever new interpretations and adaptations” (Ibid.). Each transformation of a thing constitutes a new link in this chain, and its meaning, purpose, and (to use a more Nietzschean word) value thus cannot be regarded as fixed or intrinsic. On these grounds, Nietzsche pronounces that facts do not exist; “only interpretations” (WP 267). Of human beings, Nietzsche states, “life itself forces us to posit values; life itself values through us when we posit values” (TI 490). We cannot help but be involved in the world’s ongoing process of valuation. For this reason, the essence of existence—of our existence—should never be understood in terms of static states of being but rather as “a becoming that knows no satiety, no disgust, no weariness” (WP 550). Valuation cannot reach a point of stasis or final achievement because there is no preordained endpoint or telos toward which becoming progresses (GM 513). In this light, I imagine the will to power as the generative wave of energy that continually invigorates us to demonstrate our creative abilities (our skills of valuation) in new ways.

Through the practice of genealogy, Nietzsche investigates the process of valuation that has generated and transformed a particular sign. Genealogy is the labor to identify those forces that gave rise to it, as well as those forces which subsequently mastered it for their own ends. As genealogist, Nietzsche places great importance on the role origins play in valuation (BGE 234). I conceive of genealogy as the concept of an autopsy stood on its head: The genealogist skillfully lays back the most immediate layers of the subject’s form in order to study the components that constitute its deeper structure. The intent, however, is not to identify a cause of death but the cause of birth. In works such as Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, and Twilight of the Idols, we witness Nietzsche the genealogist analyzing the sign-chains of supposedly objective or eternal truths. Time and time again, Nietzsche concludes that the origins of traditional values, as well as the forces that have mastered them, are not divine or transcendent in character, but rather human, all-too-human.

Genealogy’s labor also facilitates transvaluation. The corollary of the statement “remain faithful to the earth” is Zarathustra’s admonition to “let the value of all things be posited newly by you” (TSZ 189). The insights of genealogy, in a sense, demystify existing values and thereby better equip one to reinterpret, obscure, or obliterate their previous meanings in appropriating them. It is truly a trans-valuation between existing and created values. When Nietzsche describes those “form-giving forces” which are “the essence of life,” he speaks of them as “aggressive,” “expansive,” and “spontaneous” (GM 515). Therefore, when transvaluation occurs as an active and self-assertive practice, free of any sense of personal obligation to what one ought to do, it is an affirmation of the essence of life and of the world as the will to power.

Antithetical to any such affirmation is ressentiment. Nietzsche identifies ressentiment as valuation that is thoroughly reactive (GM 472). He finds this mode of valuation to be evident in persons who bemoan their station in life (GM 473) or who are angry over their inability to change the past (TSZ 251), and then choose to avenge themselves against a world perceived to be hostile or unfair by fashioning their own values in direct negation of that world. Ressentiment is a form of spiritual revenge because this valuation does not result in actual deeds but remains a sort of ideological attack (my words) in which the valuator accepts the present state of the world. I see it as the attitude of sour grapes elevated to a worldview. Nietzsche declares that ressentiment has so permeated the values of the West that we longer see it (GM 470). Nietzsche need only observe the web-spinning spiders to confirm the prevalence of reactivity and negation in the European, intellectual culture of his day. In Nietzsche’s understanding, the society founded on ressentiment will only deepen in its “aversion to life” (GM 599). The person this society has produced is (among other things) sickly, mediocre, eager to please, and a herd animal (BGE 266).

Thus Zarathustra announces, “I teach you the overman. Man is something that must be overcome” (TSZ 124). In Zarathustra’s prophetic teachings, there is a vision of one who wills without ressentiment; in whom the will to power is spontaneously and creatively manifest. To will as the overman is to transform the bemoaning ‘it was’ of ressentiment into ‘thus I willed it’ (TSZ 251). In this transvaluation, the great affirmer “says Yes to everything questionable, even the terrible” (TI 484). The reappropriation of “evil” values, such as self-love and esteem of the body, is “necessary for the overman’s best” (TSZ 400). It is in this regard that the overman is not to be confused with the higher man. The higher men—Christians, Buddhists, Kantians—also seek to move beyond their present state but their ascendance still takes place within “an illusory higher order of things” while the real world remains unchanged (BGE 264). The higher man is a would-be perfecter of convention, not the boldly inventive creator the overman is. True overcoming does not begin with a climbing up, but with a going under (TSZ 122), acknowledging the reality of the world as layer upon layer of valuation, all the way down. However, in throwing off the weight of constructed morality and philosophy, the process of going under finally makes one light, an active expression of the will to power.

_________________________

AC = The Antichrist

BGE = Beyond Good and Evil

EH = Ecce Homo

GM = On the Genealogy of Morals

TSZ = Thus Spoke Zarathustra

TI = Twighlight of the Idols

WP = The Will to Power

News Regarding the World of 24

2007-12-09T16:55:00.001-06:00

Over the past couple of weeks, I have made several discoveries related to 24, the only mainstream television program I make a point of watching each and every new episode the night it first airs. Thanks in large part to the proselytizing efforts of John and Nancy Speas Hill, I have been an avid watcher of the program since January of 2006. Having jumped in at the beginning of Season 5, I got caught up during my year away from the academy by purchasing and speedily devouring Seasons 1-4.

Thus it saddens me to learn that the television writers' strike has also taken it's toll on my beloved show. Production is indefinitely suspended on Season 7. In order to keep the typical broadcast format fans of the show are accustomed to, Fox has optioned to delay the usual January premiere. My only hope is that the writers will to continue to contemplate and revise the show's as-yet-unfilmed material during the interim. That would help make sure that Day 7 doesn't turn out to be as disappointing as Day 6 ended up being.

The silver lining of the production delay is that now less attention will be payed to the fact that star Kiefer Sutherland is currently serving a 48-day jail sentence as a result of (if I remember correctly) a recent DUI. Even if the writers were happy and working, 24's filming schedule would certainly have been seriously disrupted by Jack Bauer being in the slammer for a month and a half.

Returning to the topic of Season 6, it was recently released on DVD. Given my estimation of its relative level of quality, however, I'm in no hurry to own it. Nevertheless, I would like to pick it up cheaply someday if that's possible, so I'll have to keep an eye out for super-saver promotions. This time last year, Best Buy put all 5 Days on sale for just 20 bucks each, which allowed me to round out my 24 collection in an economical fashion.

As for the season that has now been postponed, I'm curious how many people saw the lengthy preview Fox aired during one of the games of the World Series. Apparently Jack decides to stop staring at the ocean and continue battling terrorism after all, only now the mastermind standing across the battleline from Superspecial Agent Bauer is none other than former head of CTU Tony Almeida. At this revelation, I uttered an impassioned, "What the hell?! I thought Robocop killed your ass!" I hope the reintroduction of a character that seemed very clearly to have died proves to be the work of some inventive writing and not a cheap, soap opra-style tactic employed in the absence of better ideas.

Fans of the show will know that Tony's better half was fellow agent and (in my humble opinion) foxy mama Michelle Dessler played by Reiko Aylesworth. I learned last week that Ms. Aylesworth's post-24 career is not going so well. Yahoo! Movies informs me that she plays a leading role in the upcoming theatrical release Aliens vs. Predator Requiem. It's gotta be rough to go from a featured role on an Emmy-winning drama to a thankless and perfunctory role in an exploitation, genre film. [Blogger's Note: This seemingly innocuous comment managed to provoke the ire of one visitor. Don't believe me? Check out the "Interested Persons" section.]

Finally, I was in Barnes & Noble the other night when I spotted a copy of 24 and Philosophy. About 5 years ago, I read Lord of the Rings and Philosophy and found the book to be surprisingly insightful, so I'm feeling inclined to pick up this more recent installment of academic reflection on popular culture. Of course, the essays contained in 24 and Philosophy might all turn out to be worthless. But I found a humorous, one-page feature at the beginning of the book that makes me optimistic that the volume as a whole will be worth purchasing. I am speaking of a letter written in the persona of Chloe addressed to the recently deceased Edgar, expressing how bummed she is about his death. If you're a 24 fan and happen to be browsing around a bookstore, I recommend taking a few minutes to read this brief selection.

Beowulf

2007-12-09T16:15:00.000-06:00

Quite regularly I see the advertisements for a certain movie and think, "I would never go to see that movie on my own but, if a group of my friends was planning to go see it, I could be interested." Beowulf was such a film for me. It was obvious to me that Robert Zemeckis had taken the technological tricks he developed on The Polar Express and applied them to less family oriented material. I figured that could be groovy. I had also read an abridged version of the poem back in high school, having forgotten nearly all details of any consequence even though I remembered enjoying what I read. Those two factors combined to make me relatively interested in this latest film version. It was the combined enthusiasm of my friends RJ, Elizabeth, and Kit, however, that proved necessary for me to want to pay the ever-increasing box office cost of a ticket to see it.

Not only did we go see Beowulf (back on November 26th), we saw it in IMAX 3-D. That was the first time I'd seen any 3-D film and this movie was a good choice for my initial experience with the format. All in all, I give the move 3 out of 4 stars, it's solid but not awesome. Yet the visuals are every bit as spectacular as the TV spots would have you belief. Spear points practically scratch your cornea, blood and bits of viscera nearly splatter in your face, and the climactic battle with the dragon had me smiling like a 5 year-old watching Star Wars for the first time. An IMAX evening ticket in Denver costs a budget-shattering $13.50 so I was grateful that the visual bells and whistles were genuinely impressive.

In short, I enjoyed Beowulf, and I recommend it to those of you who may be feeling ambivalent about the seeing the picture as I had been.

I conclude by quoting the film's obligatory "hero monologue." Beowulf decides to shout this at Grendel just before severing the monster's hand, which gives the speech an aura of Samuel L. Jackson's Ezekiel schtick in Pulp Fiction. If I could ever improv something this manly in the heat of conflict, I would consider myself pretty kick-ass. Here it is:

I am ripper and tearer and slasher and gouger!
I am the teeth in the night,
And the talons in the darkness.
Mine is the strength
And lust
And power.
I...am...BEOWULF!

Son of Doost

2007-12-07T09:34:00.000-06:00

Dustin Lafferty, the man who somehow withstood three consecutive years of being my college roommate, and his wife Emily welcomed their first child into the world at 4:21 AM on November 24th. Nathan Vance Lafferty weighed in at 7 lbs., 2 oz. and measured 21 in. in body length.

I am rejoicing with the Lafferty family on account of their new arrival. I'm looking forward to seeing one of my close friends being a father, and I'm even more curious to find out what kind of tiny human Nathan is going to be. Here are a few more pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Nathan chilling in a chair with his proud papa. I'm sure his childhood will be filled with many such moments.

Nathan demonstrates his impressive lung capacity for Emily's enjoyment.

Already sharing his father's love of The Simpsons, Nathan tries out his Mr. Burns impression on the hospital staff. Exxxcellent.

Dropping the Blogging Ball

2007-12-07T09:04:00.000-06:00

I suck.

I know it. During my brief time in a doctoral program, I have gone from a mostly prolific blogger to an inactive sack o' dookie. However, I do have a back log of bite-sized (and one relatively substantial) posts planned for the immediate future. Usually when I've slacked off, I create a mega-post containing an egregiously large amount of content. To reverse that trend, I'll be posting a number of concise, to the point reflections in the days to come. Above is the most significant piece of news I've over looked in the last several weeks. Far more spurious bloggings are soon to follow.

To end on a positive, the typically dormant Yahoo!Group I moderate has just this week experienced an uncommon upsurge in activity. There I've been putting up mad postings. Boooong!

Prepare Indianapolis

2007-11-28T21:10:00.000-06:00

Dave Scott shall soon make his presence known among your people.

28 Days Later...minus eight days.

2007-11-09T13:06:00.000-06:00

I apologize about the lapse in posting around here lately. I've updated my movies list and the Lyric Box for those of you who take a look at those particular sidebars. I have some assorted thoughts to share that will give you a sense of what I've been up to since October 2oth.

1) I saw American Gangster Sunday night. It was good. I'll give it 3 out of 4 stars. An engrossing story with solid performances from highly respected actors. The plot went several directions I never would have anticipated, and the surprise was most welcome and refreshing. These were not "twists" but simply moments and settings incorporated into the film that neither my previous experience of crime films nor my knowledge of American history led me to anticipate. If you're looking for an enjoyable night at the movies, I recommend American Gangster as fun for the whole family...assuming your family does not contain children under the age of 13 or staunchly conservative adults who feel the flames of hell lick their feet each time they hear an F-bomb dropped or see naked boobies that aren't their own or those of their spouse.

2) While meeting with the reading group associated with my Nietzsche seminar, I actually uttered this imperative cloaked as an interrogative: "Why don't you reify my balls, Gary?"

3) The Colts lost to the Patriots 24-20 last weekend. Now Peyton will almost certainly have to battle the frigid elements of Foxboro come January. Crap. The Colts could finish the regular season 15-1 and still only be the #2 seed in the AFC. Nevertheless, I take pride in the fact that the Kraft family threw around a ridiculous amount of money to acquire new players during the offseason and yet their team was only able to defeat the home grown Colts by 4 points. Sadly, moral victories don't win championships.

4) I spent much of last week working on a presentation about the 19th Century philosopher of religion Ludwig Feuerbach. On November 1st, my co-presenter and I rocked the house with a potent combination of humor and critical scholarship. (I found out Wednesday night that our professor awarded us an "A" for our efforts.) Among other prefatory statements I made about the presentation, I articulated the following warning:

"I should let you know in advance that our presentation includes a lot of gender-exclusive pronouns. Feuerbach talks about "man" and so we'll be using his language. Ladies, the upside here is that, if you don't agree with his anthropology, you can just tell yourself, 'He ain't talkin' 'bout me.'"

5) I made two visuals for my part of the presentation. I post them here without explanation for your purely aesthetic enjoyment.

30 Days of Night

2007-10-20T09:40:00.000-05:00

[Blogger's Note: I have added more comments at the end of the post. (10/21)]

Put succinctly: One of the top ten vampire films I've ever seen.

As a horror film, I give it four full stars. And from my own perspective, I don't see this as a film for the casual viewer of "scary movies." It's heavily atmospheric, as pervasively dark as the title suggests it would be, and BRUTAL. If horror films are one of your favorite genres, I think it's mandatory that you see 30 Days of Night. The average critical review on Yahoo! Movies is a meager C+ [with the addition of a few more reviews, the average has dropped to a C] but, to give you a point of reference on how much that may truly mean, the average critical grade for Stranger Than Fiction is a B-.

To those planning to see it: Don't expect much in the way of innovation, but expect much in the way of strength of presentation. The tension, I might go as far as saying the dread, created by this film is constant and damn near unrelenting (i.e. basically no levity to ease the mood after about Minute 20). The Hollywood addiction to exhaustive exposition is repudiated, the original music is easily one of the best horror scores I've ever been exposed to, and all the romanticizing of vampires that Anne Rice brought into the genre is absent. If Interview with the Vampire is your standard for a great vampire film, you're not going to like this movie nearly as much as I did. And if you're one of those movie goers who finds horror flicks to be inherently silly or dumb, this film's not going to redeem the genre for you.

(As a side note, I thought Josh Harnett did an excellent job in the lead role. And to think, after I first saw Halloween H20 I hated this guy. But I'll confess now that I think he's becoming a quality actor.)

To sum up with some specific advice:

Aaron Homoya, Perry Chrisitan- Run don't walk to see 30 Days of Night.

Josh Hedges, Amanda Tranbarger- Never watch this movie in your entire life. :)

On an unrelated note, Albus Dumbledore is gay.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071020/ap_on_en_ot/books_harry_potter

Who knew? Apparently J.K. Rowling.

Additional comments:

+I just found out that 30 Days of Night was the #1 movie at the box office this weekend. That's not at all stunning to me seeing how close we are to Halloween. Unfortuantely, I think my statement that "this film is not for the casual horror fan" is about to be invalidated by an army of tweener girls and frat boys.

+I find myself unable to stop thinking about this film over 48 hours after viewing it. Taking a study break, I just read 5 or 6 online reviews of the film (positive and negative) and have found my own opinion to be cemented rather than repudiated or significantly tweeked. Here's a link to the review I think represented by own opinions most closely:

http://www.reelviews.net/movies/t/30_days.html

The review is relatively short, but for those who'd appreciate some streamlining and/or wish to avoid potential spoilers, here are some of my favorite "moments" in James Berardenelli's write-up.

" It's a pleasant change of pace to get a vampire movie where the bloodsuckers are allowed to be monsters. You know what I'm talking about - no more of this brooding, tortured soul shit...Too often of late, motion pictures have defanged their vampires, turning them into whiney, pseudo-romantic figures. That's not a mistake made by director David Slade. Finally - a modern vampire movie where audiences sympathize with the victims rather than their attackers. If you think these creature are sexy, you need therapy...

"The premise - providing vampires with a month of sun-free opportunity to wreck havoc - is clever and, if it's not fully realized, at least enough is done with it for 30 Days of Night to represent two hours of solid, gory entertainment. This isn't one of those neutered PG-13 horror movies. There's enough blood and viscera coating the screen to earn the R-rating without things tipping the scales into the "torture porn" category. In many ways, what Slade has wrought here is reminiscent of an amped-up version of a Hammer vampire movie. In fact, Danny Huston [see my next comment] alternates between channeling Christopher Lee and Max Schreck...

"One aspect of 30 Days of Night that's refreshing is that it doesn't require the survivors to have undergone frontal lobotomies in order to move the story forward. Yes, characters occasionally do stupid things, but they're not unreasonably stupid and they don't force members of the audience to fight against the suspension of disbelief gag reflex. I'm not going to claim that the screenplay is either airtight or brilliant, but it is smarter than the average genre entry, and that's a big plus."

+I didn't recognize him at all during 30 Days of Night, but Danny Huston (son of director John Huston) played Marlow- the lead villain one reviewer humorously called primo vampiro. Huston first entered my world in last year's Australia-based western The Propostion. Through the combined testimony of both films, Huston has demonstrated himself to be adept at portraying bone-chilling monsters of two dramatically different types.

+Special Make-Up Effects for the film were done by Gino Acevedo and his team- the same group of make-up artists that worked on Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy and his remake of King Kong. Quite the change of pace, eh?

Assortedness

2007-10-19T12:37:00.000-05:00

+ A song:
If you're a fat guy and you know it, wear a Hawaiian shirt.
If you're a fat guy and you know it, wear a Hawaiian shirt.
If you're a fat guy and you know it,
Then your fashion sense will show it.
If you're a fat guy and you know it, wear a Hawaiian shirt.

+A beacon of light shines through:
This morning I received back the first official paper I've written in 15 months. I was awarded an "A." Now this tidbit of news will certainly be received by many of my friends and family as ho-hum, status quo trivia. But for me, even though the paper was only a 3-page critical reflection, it's my first legitimate scrap of proof that I can still succeed in academia even after a year away and a considerable boost in what's expected of me.

+A cover of caligation settles overhead:
For the first time in my experience of higher education, I find myself basically at odds with one of my professors. There is no personal animosity involved but it is becoming increasingly evident to me that an intellectual/ideological antagonism is in play. Anderson graduates, imagine Willard Reed; now replace his religious skepticism with a full-blown condescending attitude towards theologians. Candler graduates, imagine David Pacini; now intensify his penchant for self-indulgent monologue with a deep apathy for whether anyone ever understands a single point of his opinion on the course materials. After you've done that, recall Pacini's regular claims that "Pretty much everyone else but me misinterprets the thinker(s) we're reading in this course" and supplement it with the claim, "And you, the student, are almost certainly going to leave this course not understanding them correctly either."

For all their quirks and presuppositions, Reed and Pacini repeatedly demonstrated to me that they were willing to help me develop my own thoughts/position, and regularly proved to me that they were not in the business of forging clones of themselves. Six weeks into this quarter, I'm largely certain that I could not attribute these qualities to the professor leading my Nietzsche seminar. I don't think this guy's out to get me, but I do get the sense that, in his mind, I've been pigeon-holed into a category of thinkers he's less than amicable toward. I'm not giving up and I'm not going to validate his stereotypes of theologians by becoming overly contentious and defensive in class. But I have started entertaining thoughts like, "If I can get out of the Nietzsche seminar with at least a "C," and earn an "A" in my other class, then I'll still have the "B" average I need to retain my scholarship."

+An arduous process concludes:
A week ago Wednesday (October 10th), I finally received my Stafford loan funds. It took three, pain-in-my-ass months to secure that money. Now that I have it, I'm too damn busy with school to spend it on what I need to most (couch, bed frame, new tennis shoes). I couldn't have waited much longer. The day the money was deposited, the combined balance of my checking and my savings accounts was just under $150.

+A hilarious film discovered:
About ten days ago, I bought "Knocked Up" without having seen it but confident that I would find it funny. Little did I know at the time of purchase that I would be laughing uproariously within the first 10 seconds of my initial viewing. Not since (probably) my freshman year of college had I re-watched a movie the very next day after first seeing it. I did exactly that with "Knocked Up."

+A hero "resigns":
One of my personal heroes, Mixed Martial Arts legend Randy "The Natural" Couture has "resigned" from the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Not only did he abdicate his Heavweight Title, but he's also renounced his duties as a color commentator and ambassador for the company. If you want to hear a solid report on Randy's reasons for resigning, see this article:

http://www.sherdog.com/news/news.asp?n_id=9455

If you want to read UFC President Dana White's "candid" response, read this one:

http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=8241

An Open Letter to Susan Christian

2007-10-08T00:29:00.000-05:00

A little over a week ago I received an e-mail from my uncle Perry Christian containing a special request. He informed me that Susan, his wife and my aunt, would be attending a women's retreat this weekend. Perry said that one of the events Susan would participate in involved the reading of letters- letters clandestinely written by each woman's loved ones that would be read aloud to her in the presence of the others in attendance. Each letter should serve to encourage and edify the person to whom it was addressed. Perry requested that I write such a letter for Susan. My only instructions were to keep the letter relatively brief (a true challenge for me) and to write from the heart.

What follows is the letter I composed. It represents one of the rare moments in my life where I pulled back every internal check and poured out the most honest, unfiltered declaration of affection I am capable of formulating. Susan deserved no less because, of all the people in my life I cherish, there are people I hold as dearly as I hold Susan, but no one I treasure more. When I completed the final draft last Sunday, I immediately wanted to post its contents here. Doing so, however, would likely have ruined the surprise the retreat organizers had planned. But seeing as she has certainly been presented with the letter by now, I want my testimony to her exemplary character and incalculable worth to be known by more than just a select few. If there is anything remarkable about the letter it is not so because of any craftsmanship or skill of expression on my part. It is solely because of the utmost remarkability of the woman described therein.

Dear Susan,

When I think of you, the characteristics that immediately come to mind are sensitivity and warmth of heart. These are two qualities you possess with such thorough authenticity it astounds me. Because these are qualities I seek to develop in myself, I cannot help but hold you in high honor for the way you continually demonstrate your sensitive and warm nature to family and friends alike. When you see a loved one in tears, you do all you can to dry their eyes. When someone you care for is wounded, you move quickly to sooth their pain and mend their brokenness.

Within our home, you devote enormous amounts of energy toward cultivating peace and fellowship, strengthening family bonds, and fixing the many problems that arise. It seems to me that you are only genuinely happy when you believe that those you love are truly happy as well. These are the desirable traits that secure your place among the best of daughters, mothers, and wives.

I stand among the privileged souls who have felt the fullness of your warmth and sensitivity. Fifteen years ago, your nephew was a boy suffering from the deepest of wounds, reeling from the most unexpected of losses, and you and your husband took me into your home and raised me as if I had been your own son from the very beginning of my days. In doing so, you honored a promise made to a man and woman who were no longer capable of holding you to your word. And remember: I came to you not as a finished person but as a work-in-progress. I am certain that if Debbie and Rockie Scott could speak with you concerning all that you have done on my behalf, they would shower you with thanks for the many years of effort and care you have devoted to their child. Many friends and family have made great contributions to who I am today, but you are one of the precious few who have shaped the core of my personhood.

Please, Susan, accept this well-deserved praise without hesitation. Let your own soul be warmed by the knowledge that you have made an impact on this world through the impact made on your loved ones. Draw confidence from that fact that your contribution is irreplaceable, invaluable, and ongoing. Your sensitivity and warmth of heart enrich all who are near you. That is why you are loved and treasured by so very many people; not least of all, by me.

Your nephew, your friend, and your son,
David Scott

"Jason Bourne wouldn't be able to read Luther."

2007-10-05T13:40:00.000-05:00

This statement came from the mouth of my academic advisor during my preliminary interview on Monday. I've been meaning to post it since then but, obviously, haven't gotten around to it until now. Allow me to set the context for the utterance.

The point of a preliminary interview is to get an incoming Ph.D. student acquainted with his three-person advisory committee, and vice versa. We discuss my interests, what I hope to get out of the program, which other professors might be of great help to me, and what courses I should take for the rest of the year. One very important matter is planning out a course of action to prepare myself to meet the program's language requirement. To put it simplisticly, I need to demonstrate competence (not fluency, mind you) in a "research language" other than English by this time next year. A great deal of the contemporary and historical literature I will be engaging during my academic life is or was orginally written in German, so my committee and I targeted that language as the one for which I will take a competency exam during the summer or, at the latest, next fall.

When the head of my committee, Dr. Sheila Davaney, was explaining some of the various means of preparation other students have utilized in the past I said:

"You know, I've seen adds for the Rosetta Stone program on television. I've been thinking about buying that to supplement the limited background in German I already have."

"I'm pretty sure that program is designed to help you speak German, not read it," she replied.

"Really?!" My reaction was surprise tinged with disappointment. "When the commericials said that that the U.S. government used Rosetta Stone to train CIA agents, I thought, 'Cool! I wanna be like Jason Bourne.'"

After the briefest round of laughter, Sheila spoke the quote of note, "Jason Bourne wouldn't be able to read Luther."

I already know what the subject of her statement would have to say in his defense:

"Matt...Damon."

What Little I Have, I Give to Thee

2007-10-01T11:21:00.000-05:00

Not a great deal has changed since my last personal update. I've met a handful of new people, dug deeper into the study of nihilism, and read several hundred more pages on the theories and methods of religious studies.

The biggest development in the past week has been the long-protracted process of applying for student loans finally reaching a conclusion. In theory, my lender has already disbursed the first wave of funds. But I haven't received any more of that money thus far than Forrest Gump received for the "million dollar wound" on his but-TOCKS. The potential stress that could be caused by this continued delay was alleviated last week when the university credited my application deposit to my student account, wiping out another $300 from my balance and reducing the total money I owe them for this term to a whopping $9.00. I can afford to pay that. As soon as the loan money is in my checking account, it'll be time for couch shoppin', crackaz.

Also noteworthy is the fact that, for the first time since January 18, 2005, I now have health insurance. (Dear Jesus, thank you for protecting my poor ass from any truly debilitating injuries and illnesses over the past two years. Amen.) The question now is which breed of doctor I'll visit first: a dermatologist or an orthopedist? What's a more immediate concern: the burn damage to my left shoulder or the structural weakness in my right knee? Hmmmm.

I was oh-so-happy to not only have the opportunity to watch the Colts play yesterday (something I can no longer take for granted from week to week) but I'm doubly glad they overcame their first quarter funk and kicked some Bronco tail. I would likely have had a very long week if the local horse defeated the horse of my home state.

One last comment. I continually feel inclined to post lyrical snippets either here, on Facebook or on MySpace. The "Lyric Box" is my latest addition to the sidebar features on the right. I figure I'll change this every week or so. If I'm posting something in that box, it's because I think it's quality for any number of reasons. You'll never know the source of a particular snippet unless you're already familiar with it prior to encountering it in my Mad Kingdom. This way visitors to my blog can experience the quotation free of any prejudice they might harbor against the band or solo performer that penned it. No prizes will be awarded for those able to identify the artist.

Upset Madness!

2007-09-23T01:56:00.000-05:00

I just watched the wildest MMA event I've ever seen live. Under normal circumstances, if all but one fight went to a decision and no preliminary bouts were broadcast, I would be inclined to complain or even feel a bit cheated. Tonight's action, however, was certainly not an example of normal circumstances.

*Both of the fights I was looking forward to watching most were every bit as good as I had hoped they would be.

*The other 3 televised fights exceeded my expectations.

*The final 2 fights of the night were tremendous upsets that turned the highly competitive Light Heavyweight Division on it freakin' head:
1) Forrest Griffin chokes out Shogun just before the final bell! Shogun looked completely fatigued after just 5 minutes of action. His lack of cardio may be the main reason he has now plummetted from his previous ranking of #1 in the world at 205 pounds.

2) Keith Jardine wins a Split Decision over former LHW champion Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell. Jardine clearly won the last two rounds, even buckling Chuck's knees with a stiff shot to the jaw in the 2nd. The gameplan his team devised was brilliant. Chuck has now lost 2 fights in a row for the first time ever in his illustrious career. It was also announced at the opening of the program that, if Chuck were to win, then he would fight Wanderlei Silva in December. Jardine's defeat of the Iceman almost certainly means that the long awaited Silva-Liddell showdown has been foiled yet again.

*Jon Fitch won a true split decision over Diego Sanchez. I thought Fitch undoubtedly won the 2nd Round and Diego the 3rd. But the 1st was one of the most tightly contested rounds I've ever witnessed. Fitch's gotta be ranked in the Top 5 at 170 now.

This event can't come out on DVD fast enough in my opinion. And to think, it was completely devoid of title fights.

...to Prove to Dad that I'm Not a Fool

2007-09-18T23:28:00.000-05:00

In my last post, I shared the more interesting details about my move to Denver, my new apartment, and my efforts to furnish the place.

Since that bit of reflection, I've completed my first week of classes and things are going fairly smooth thus far. Now that I'm in a Ph.D. program and on the quarter system for the first time, I'm still adjusting to the fact that 9 credit hours per term is considered full-time enrollment. Most courses are worth 4 or 5 credit hours so I am taking only two classes this quarter. One was determined for me coming into the program.

There's a course entitled "Theories and Methods in the Study of Religion" that all new students must take. Interestingly, the class syllabus does not include a final exam or a term paper. My grade will be determined by how I perform on 4 3-page reading response papers and 30-minute presentation on a classic book in the field.

By contrast, the other class I'm taking (a philosophy course on Nietzsche) is backloaded to the point that 80% of my grad will be determined in the final week of the term when both a term paper and a take-home final must be handed in. The mix of the students in this class is quite unique. First of all, it has an astonishing number of people in it given the subject matter- easily 20 or more. And, second, the class is made up of undergraduates, masters students, and one Ph.D. student (me). The other 20% of the course grade is earned by weekly participation in a reading group that meets outside of class one hour each week. My group consists of myself and two college sophomores. We had our first meeting today and it felt like I was the leader of the world's smallest colloquy.

Both of the classes I'm in convene only once a week so I spend the great majority of my time outside of the classroom. I've already made a friend in the program named R.J. and we work out together in the morning on MWF. When I'm not in class, lifting weights, or shopping for groceries, I'm either reading, surfing the web, or watching a DVD. This past weekend I did little more than study and watch all three Lord of the Rings films in their extended cuts. It was actually an enjoyable weekend despite the relative solitude. I don't spend much more time alone during the week than I was over the summer in Indy, but this was the first weekend I realized how much I've been keeping to myself since arriving in Denver. From what I can tell, Iliff doesn't have the active Back-to-School social scene that Candler had.

I cook for myself about three nights a week. Now that I'm selecting all my own food and footing the bill for it, I'm eating a bit better and a fair bit less than I had been over the past year. Now that I'm also getting back into a workout routine, I'm already feeling lighter even though I can't say for a fact I've lost any weight. And I must say that I enjoy having an apartment to myself for the first time in my life. Having a good roommate is a rewarding experience (and I've had several very good ones) but living alone has some undeniable benefits. My reading is never disturbed no matter what time of day I chose to do it, the apartment doesn't get any messier than I allow it to get, and I comfortably spend the first hour of nearly each day in my boxers. A mixed blessing is that I talk to myself a lot more (I say "mixed" because I find myself to be quite entertaining which is likely a dual symptom of inner gladness and madness). And the major downside of not living with someone else is that I know roommates are often responsible for far more pleasant surprises than they are unwelcome ones.

There are only few things left to be done before I can say I've fully settled in to my life in Denver. The most notable one being that my student loans are still pending. It could be as long as three more weeks before any loan money comes my way, so I'll be spending a fair bit of time this week begging various authoritative persons not to charge me late fees when I'm unable to pay my bills on time due to circumstances beyond my control. My various new masters all seem quite benevolent so I should be able to escape this frustrating situation unscathed. The second unresolved matter is that I still plan to by a sofa/loveseat. However, I'll need some loan money to supplement my present funds before I can afford to make such a sizeable purchase. Other than loans and couch, I've pretty much got my life arranged in manner I'm comfortable with.

Well, friends, I'm quite tired now and the little clock display on my laptop is informing me that its only five minutes until my self-appointed bedtime (not that there's been anyone else who had the authority to mandate my bedtime over the last seven years). I promise to proofread this post, as well as its immediate predecessor, in the very near future.

The Land of a Different Horse

2007-09-08T07:47:00.000-05:00

When the clock rolls around to about 2:30 PM Mountain Time, I will have been a resident of the city of Denver, CO for one whole week. My journey here was not terribly difficult but not especially easy either. A brief compromise of my immune system saw to that. As you may recall from a previous post, the moving option I chose to go with was the "stuffing my car with as many boxes as bags as possible and then driving 1100 miles in two days" strategy.

And that's precisely what I did. During the afternoon and evening of Thursday, August 30th, I packed my 4-Door Honda Accord as full as I could without creating new blindspots for myself. My plan was to drive 10 hours to Salina, Kansas, where I had already made a hotel reservation through Priceline.com, and put another 6.5 hours of travels behind me the next day. Once I set this plan in motion, I was bound to it. To my knowledge, Priceline reservations cannot be canceled without forfeiting the hotel fee (which is paid up front) and the woman who runs my new apartment building had a difficult time lining up someone to meet and check me in once I arrived in Denver since I was coming into town during a holiday weekend.

This fixedness proved daunting when, just 12 hours before I was set to depart from Indianapolis, my gastro-intestinal candle started burning at both end...if you catch my drift. I felt far less than stellar but I know I would have tremendous difficulties putting together a new travel plan if I missed the window I'd built for myself. So the morning of August 31st, Susan was kind enough to buy me some Gatorade and a two liter of Sprite and I lived on those fluids and a sleeve a Saltines for the duration of my trip to Salina. Soon thereafter my innards had righted themselves and, by the time I went to sleep in my Denver apartment for the first time, my belly was full with a Subway footlong.

My present apartment is apart of building owned and operated by the Iliff School of Theology. As such, I had mentally prepared myself to find a one-bedroom apartment very much like the ones I had seen in Candler's Turner Village. That comparison won't do much for those of you unfamiliar with the community I lived in during my first year in Atlanta, but it should be an effective image for those of you who know it. (Or "knew" it I should say. I've been told that Emory is tearing the place down.)

What I actually encountered was a considerable improvement on my expectations. My bedroom is bigger than the ones at TV my bathroom is a couple of shades nicer (though the shower head is equally pathetic) and I actually have a little hall way separating my bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the apartment. There's also a door where you can close the back half off from the noise of the front half should you have the cause and desire to do so. The kitchen area is larger than the one in two-bedroom TV apartment I occupied, and there's even a small dining area adjacent to it so I don't have to put a dining table in the living room. Speaking of the living room, it's not luxuriously large but it is amply sized for a one-bedroom apartment. In short I'm pleased with the place. I'm paying the most I ever have for rent ($620/month) but it's not much more than I was paying for my share of rent and utilities during my second year in Atlanta and I'm getting a lot of apartment for my dollar.

Another major component of my moving plan was that I would be buying all new furniture once I showed up. The cheapest moving truck/service option my research uncovered would still have cost me around $1150, and the only pieces of furniture I would have brought with me were a queen size bed, a dresser, a cheap bookcase, a few media racks, and an aging La-Z-boy. My gas costs would also have been higher because I would have been paying to fuel a much larger vehicle with my own car in tow.

Well, I was thrilled to find a number of major pieces of furniture already present in an apartment I was informed would be entirely unfurnished. The bedroom came with a full size bed, a dresser and a small bookcase. The dining area has a small, square table complete with three chairs, while the living room came equipped with a couple of lamps and a decent recliner. There was already a curtain in place in the shower, and I found a microwave and coffee maker in the kitchen. I am planning keep nearly all these items around, thus my pleasant suprise has saved me at least $700-$800 of the money I had been planning to spend on new stuff.

My full-time job once I officially occupied the place was to buy the furniture, appliances, and other goods I still needed to purchase and find a proper place to put everything. Over the course of 5 days, I made three trips to Target, three to Bed, Bath & Beyond, one to Bestbuy, one to Wal-Mart, one to a regional grocery chain (Safeway), and one fruitless trip to Big!Lots. Just over $1000 later, I have:

*a fairly plush reading chair complete with Ottoman
*a glass-top computer desk
*a TV stand
*four end tables (two of which are serving as speaker stands)
*another cheap bookcase
*a four-piece lamp set
*three media racks (one will remain unbuilt until I bring the rest of my Video/DVD collection to Denver after Christmas break)
*a high-quality toaster, and
*a George Foreman grill. It's a Super Champ.

Of course there have been other domestic expense like food, trash cans, an ironing board, and the extra comfy mattress pad and pillows I got for my otherwise stiff bed. All in all, I've taken advantage of many a Labor Day and Back to School Sale and purchased some quality furniture cheaply (e.g. getting a hundred dollar desk for fifty bucks). And out of all the money I've spent this past week, I would have had to spend at least $450 of that even if I had used a moving truck or service. The only three thing left on my "To Buy" list are a desk chair, a coffee table, and- what will be the biggest single expense of all -a loveseat or sofa. All of which are also items I would have needed to get even if I had rented a truck. At the end of the day, it looks as though I saved myself $700 in rental and gas costs by following my chosen plan of action. That'll cover an extra month's rent and cell phone bill with some mad money left over.

Well, I figure that's all the information you ever cared to know about my move, my apartment, and my settling process. I'll post another blog entry soon about how orientation went yesterday and the initial impressions I have about what life will be like as a Ph.D. student.

Still the Champ!

2007-08-26T08:25:00.000-05:00

"The type of fighter that stands the best chance of defeating Randy Couture is a big, heavy grappler like Gonzaga."

"If Randy is going to take Gonzaga out, he's going to have to do it early."

"Randy can win this, but it's going to have to be by decision because Gonazaga is going to hang with him until the very end" (Dave Scott).

The above statements represent some of the common observations made by MMA fans and journalists leading up to last night's UFC Heavyweight Championship fight between reigning 3-time title holder Randy Couture and Gabriel Gonzaga. The fact that each assertion was based in sound logic meant nothing after the bout was over. All such statements were rendered irrelevant by what actually took place during the main event of UFC 74: Respect.

The final result: Couture wins by Technical Knock Out due to strikes at 1:37 of the 3rd Round.

From the moment Randy wobbled Gonzaga with a left jab during the initial striking exchange, it became clear that the 44 year-old veteran had a damn good shot at retaining his belt. When he slammed his 252-lb opponent utilizing a violent single leg takedown within the first period, it became emphatically evident that The Natural could impose his will while simultaneously stealing the heart from his foe. The crunching finish to the monster slam resulted in a clash of heads that broke Gonzaga's nose.

The challenger dripped, sprayed, and spit blood for the remainder of the bout as Couture consistently controlled him in the clinch and landed tight punches and elbows to his injured face. Yet Gonzaga landed several solid shots of his own throughout Rounds 1 and 2. He even connected three or four times with the same high kick that obliterated Mirko Cro Cop. But the champ at least partially blocked the majority of those strikes and inexplicably stood his ground when one happened to get through.

Randy consistently outclassed Gonzaga in every aspect of the game their battle covered. The champ was finally able to finish his opponent when he mounted Gonzaga early in the third frame. Couture pinned Gabriel against the fence and rained down a cluster of unanswered blows, provoking the referee to step in and wave off the fight. Randy Couture's successful title defense not only solidifies his continued status as one of the best in the sport today. It also vanquishes one of his few lingering demons: that aforementioned inability to prevail against a heavier, skilled ground technician.

Have I ever mentioned that he's my favorite fighter of all time?

UFC 74- Title Fight Analysis

2007-08-24T10:38:00.000-05:00

Hey Friends,

I know I've been relatively silent in the blogosphere once again. That has much to do with the fact that I spent most of this week at my grandparents house in Bloomington where the Internet is something only spoken of in whispers and rumors.

For my return to active posting, I've decided to share my thoughts on tomorrow nights UFC Heavyweight Championship fight between my hero Randy Couture and the up-and-coming challenger Gabriel Gonzaga. Dustin recently asked me to offer some insight and I thought I'd share my response to his request with all of you. I have limited myself to 6 dense paragraphs.

A Bad Match Up for the Champ?
As one of the central proverbs of combat sports declares, "Styles make fights." On paper, Gabriel Gonzaga is arguably the worst style match-up Randy Couture could be up against. When Randy first moved down from heavy to light heavyweight in 2003, it had everything to do with the fact that he had dropped two consecutive title fights to other skilled grapplers who outsized him. Gonzaga fits the mold of those two previous opponents: Like Ricco Rodriguez, Gabe is highly competent ju jitsu player with plenty of brawn to supplement his technique. Like Josh Barnett, Gabe gets your thinking about his superior ground game and then lambastes you with his thunderous striking power. Randy admitted before the Gonzaga-Cro Cop showdown in April that Gonzaga would pose a greater challenge for him, and now many MMA pundits are agreeing with him. A lot of credible folks are picking the challenger to win Saturday night.

The Evolution of Couture
The potentially fatal flaw in the above pro-Gonzaga logic is that it compares a present day Gabe with the Randy Couture who stepped into the Octagon at UFC 36 and UFC 39. Not only does it overlook the Randy who dominated Tito Ortiz for 5 rounds (at 205 lbs., Tito was a grappler with a definite size advantage), it doesn't give much merit to Randy's championship victory over Tim Sylvia. The pro-Gonzaga crowd rightly points out that, although Tim was half a foot taller and had 40+ pounds on Couture, Tim's strength is the stand-up game and he's not known for his grappling. But I think this point gets an excessive amount of attention and another very important truth goes unnoticed: Randy demonstrated a skill set against Tim that was nowhere to be found in the Randy who fought Barnett. He's had an effective combination of boxing and wrestling ever since Couture-Liddell I, and he demonstrated at UFC 68 that competent Muay Thai skills are not part of his arsenal.

Key Questions to Consider
I think picking a winner in this fight comes down to how one chooses to answer three key questions. First, can Randy neutralize the submission game of a bigger, stronger opponent? I think he can. His fights against Barnett and Rodriguez ended as a result of strikes not submissions. Those two men, however, used their submission grappling skills to make Randy defensive, get him on his back, and pound him out. Other than having to defend a couple armbar attempts during Couture-Belfort III, Randy's not had to worry much about being submitted since his loss to Rodriguez. Gonzaga may be able to follow the blue print of his predecessors to victory or, if he's slick, he might get Randy thinking too much about the ground and pound and catch the champ in an armbar or side choke.

Question number two is, Who has the better stand up? I'll be thoroughly surprised if this battle is won on the feet by either man. Randy has always employed striking to set up takedowns or to neutralize the superior stand up of an opponent. Gonzaga, meanwhile, may have stopped three of his last four opponents with strikes but two of them were men who are winless in the UFC and one whom he thoroughly bludgeoned from the mount and disoriented before kicking his head into the 12th row. I think Randy and Gabe will neutralize one another standing up.

The final question (which Randy himself has continually brought to the fore) is, Can Gonzaga handle the intangibles and physical stress of competing in a 5-round championship main event for the first time in his career. Randy, on the other hand, has been in several 25-minute wars and is perpetually in the title picture of whatever weight class he has competed in. Georges St-Pierre's championship loss at UFC 69 emphatically demonstrated that even the most complete skill set cannot achieve victory without a steely mental resolve to compliment it. Randy has such resolve. Whether or not Gonzaga shares it has yet to be seen.

My Prediction
Couture by Unanimous Decision. After Randy won the UFC Heavyweight Championship for the third time in March, I posted a lengthy reflection on how he has consistently thrived in the role of the underdog. I learned my lesson when I picked Randy to lose against Tim Sylvia despite my deep loyalty towards The Natural. This time, my heart and my mind are siding with Randy. Randy will give Gonzaga hell and outpoint his opponent but, unless the challenger gasses out, Gabe will hang around until the final bell.

Back Online

2007-08-16T09:49:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone!

I'm happy to announce that I got my computer back from the Geek Squad yesterday afternoon. Now I once again have daily access to cyberspace. I want to extend a thank you to the Tranbargers, my grandpa, and the Indianapolis Reisses for letting me use their computers while I was bereft of my laptop over the past two weeks. Their collective generosity kept me from jonesing for the Internet too badly during that period of separation.

To give you an update on what I've been up to since I last blogged, I've mostly been making arrangements to make my move to Denver. After reseraching several moving options, I decided against hiring a moving service or even renting a truck. I've decided to pack whatever "essential" possessions I have into my Honda, drive out to the Mile High City, and simply buy all-new furniture once I arrive. A scouting trip to Target and other such retailers revealed that this plan of action would be no more expensive than renting a truck and trailing my car. AND I'll be spending that considerable chunk of cash on things I'll get to keep for an extended period of time, rather than on rentals I'll have to return once my move is complete.

As for the date of my departure, I will be leaving Indianapolis on Friday, August 31st. Mapquest tells me that the journey from Indy to Denver will take 16 hours, 11 minutes which, I must admit, is a longer trek than I'm manly enough to make in a straight shot. Using the combined powers of Mapquest and a recently acquired road atlas, I discovered that Salina, Kansas is precisely ten hours from my house in Indiana, and I plan on stopping there for some R&R. The next morning I will drive the remaining 6.25 hours into Denver, check into my empty apartment, and start filling the place up with stuff. Orientation is on September 7th, so I'll have the 2nd-6th to get settled in, let my body adjust to the altitude and maybe explore the city a little.

I'm trying to get as many preparations finalized now as I possibly can. Doing so goes along way toward alleviating any anxiety I may have about moving. My apartment is set, my hotel reservation is made, and 70% of what's I'm taking with me is already packed up. What's left to deal with at this point is that I'm having a little work done on my car (mainly recharging the A/C) tomorrow, there's still some small things to work out where my financial aid is concerned, and I'm still pessimistic about how much stuff I can actually fit in the Honda. However, all the big stuff is under control and that's allowing me to be more excited about relocating myself then nervous.

Now I just want to enjoy my last two weeks at home before I head 1,100 miles west for the next several years.

Repairs

2007-08-02T09:40:00.000-05:00

Hey friends,

I'm getting the word out that I'm about to take my computer to the Geek Squad to have some repairs done. My screen has been acting up for the last two or three months now, and I figure now is the best time to have it fixed. Why is this the best time you're probably not asking? Well, two primary reasons: 1) I'd prefer to tie up this loose thread before I move to Denver a month from now and, 2) the 3-year service plan I purchased runs out on August 28th. So, those of you who regularly contact me through some facet of cyberspace (or may have been contemplating doing so in the very near future), I'll be more difficult to get a hold of for a week or so starting this afternoon or tomorrow morning when I take in my laptop.

Slacker

2007-07-29T16:19:00.000-05:00

That's what I am...at least where this blog is concerned. It's been 18 days since I've offered up a post on this page and nearly the entire month of July since I offered up anything other than a detour sign to someone else's blog. For those of you truly attentive visitors, you may have noticed that I've continued to update my sidebars on a consistent basis.

Regarding those sidebars, I beefed up my list of recently watched movies a couple weeks back. It now shows the last twenty films I've watched. In counterbalance to beefing up this sidebar, I removed the list of my most recently purchased CDs. My main motivation for this move was that I had only bought 5 albums in the preceding ten months and so my list was quite static. Coincidentally, I bought 2 more CDs ("Vena Sera" by Chevelle and "As the Palaces Burn" by Lamb of God) little more than a week after removing that sidebar.

What should soften the blow of my laziness in blogging is the fact that, be it by e-mail, phone, Facebook, MySpace or face-to-face conversation, I've kept in regular contact with nearly all the dozen or so folks that actually check this blog on a regular basis. If by chance you believe you have not received adequate compensatory communication from your truly, I encourage you to chide me publically in the "Interest Person(s)" section of this post.

I feel I owe my friends/readers some noteworthy tidbits of information after such an extended period of relative quiet. So here goes:

+ I officially have an apartment to live in during my first year of course work in Denver. I have my address already and everything, and I'll grant private request for that information if any of you should desire it (davescott82@yahoo.com). The earliest day I can move in is September 1st, so I'll be leaving Indianapolis on that day or very close to it. That means I'll still be around these here parts just a shade under 5 weeks.

+ About two weeks ago, I received my orientation packet for the Joint Ph.D Program. Orientation sessions and enrollment will be on September 7th. I also found out I have homework to complete before I even step foot on campus. The seminar that all incoming students must take requires summer reading from two books and one encylcopedia. I have all the necessary materials in my possession already and am now trying to motivate myself to go over about 600 pages of scholarly material.

+ I, like many of you, am irriatated as hell because of the sports scandals going on right now. For the last four summers, Nick Tranbarger has reciprocated my tutelage in the fine art of MMA viewership by instructing me on how to properly watch and appreciate the Tour de France. July has brought to light depressing truths about prominent figures in both sports. So much so that the pre-Tour favorite and the fella that all but had the race locked up were forced to withdraw and "ultimate fighters" like UFC 155-lb Champion Sean Sherk and the original UFC legend Royce Gracie tested positive for illegal steroids after their last respective bouts. Add on top of this a crooked ref in the NBA and Michael Vick's sadistic treatment of canines and you've got a proverbial cluster fuck threatening to swallow whole any and all credibility in professional sports. I guess we have to find consolation in the fact that a man of impeccable reputation and generous character is about to break the most venerated record in all of major league baseball.

+ I have a brief and humorous story about a kitched disaster I experienced a week and a half ago. I'll share that tale later this week.

+ There a several excellent films in the list to the right of this post. The latest Harry Potter flick was well worth the price of admission, and "The Simpsons Movie" was most entertaining even though it didn't live up to my full hopes for it. To fans of slasher movies, be you hardcore or be you casual, I highly recommend "Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon." Dave Winters, one of my fellow horror buffs, recommended it to me on Thursday and I rented in Friday. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The film is what may have been created if Christopher Guest decided to make a movie about a serial killer: in other words, "Halloween" meets "Best in Show."

That is all I have for now.

The Adorable Focal Point of Joy That Is Eliot

2007-07-11T09:58:00.000-05:00

If you want to see heart-warming and adorable pictures of a family that has been fighting to be together for over a year, check out this blog:

http://katiemohr.blogspot.com/

If you want a quality summary of the back story to these photos, browse Erin Miller's "Resonance" blog by clicking the appropriate link on my toolbar. And, of course, you can always look over Katie's blog for a first hand and detailed account.

I personally do not know Katie and Eliot but Erin has been keeping me updated on their exceedingly noteworthy tale. Because I was so moved by the photos of their homecoming, I thought I would be remiss to not nudge others towards them. I'm especially fond of the one of Eliot in his new crib.

Noteworthy Items of Entertainment

2007-07-01T19:11:00.001-05:00

A few observations about what I've experienced recently on Television, DVD, and the Internet:

1) I saw a commercial during Scrubs this evening for Sour Skittles. It is an immediate contender, if not the frontrunner, for the most bizarre TV ad I've ever seen. The commercial opens on an old man sitting in a barn. He's relaxing on a chair in a pair of jeans and a flannel shirt that is completely unbuttoned and hanging open. The shirt needs to be wide open to allow proper access for six milking tubes attached to his abdomen.

Before you have time to vocalize, "What the hell?!" in response to this initial image, a younger man comes around the corner holding a milk bottle. This second man complains to his elder that the milk he's putting out is sour and the Sour Skittles this aged lactater is so fond of are likely to blame. The old man acknowledges the probable truth of what his interlocutor has proposed but insists that he's "willing to take that risk" rather than give up this delicious, new innovation in candy. Keep in mind, there is a milk machine extracting fluid from the seated fella the entire time he's on screen.

I like bizarre humor but this is flat out disgusting. The nearest thing I've seen like it on television before was an episode of "American Dad" where the alien (a male alien, mind you) that lives in the house begins lactating and the product of his bodily activities ends up being used as a mayo-substitute in potato salad. Not only do I find the most recent offering more disturbing because it involves live actors but I am definitely not encouraged to sample Skittles latest offering on account of this ad.

2) Yesterday afternoon I watched a movie I've owned for several years but had forgetten how excellent it was. David Fincher is likely best know for directing Fight Club but his best film is arguably Seven.

Watching Seven was an excellent way to spend the latter half of my Saturday afternoon. At the time of its release, Seven fit into the "serial killer" movie niche that was as popular ten years ago as "torture" movies are today. But Seven, unlike contemporaneous films such as Copycat or Fallen, is much more about characters than killings and Fincher is more interested in the persons tracking the killer than delving into the psychology of a murderer. In this respect it is more like Silence of the Lambs, the film that kicked off 90's moviegoers' fixation on the serial killer, than it is like most its cinematic kin.

Most movies dealing with serial killers are centrally about the conditions which create and sustain such evildoers. And there is also a sense that the lives of the protagonists or the world itself will be made better by removing the killer's threat from society. But Seven answers this stereotypical attitude with an affirmation of the apparent pointlessness of life's pains and trials, as well as with a secular articulation of the fundamental depravity of human beings.

The one character in the film that embodies the hopeful outlook of your typical hollywood hero is Det. David Mills (played by Brad Pitt). He's the brash yet good-hearted new guy on the force looking to make a name for himself while making the world a safer place to life all in one potent effort. His counterpoint is Det. William Somerset (played by a Morgan Freeman who's brought his A-game to the table). Somerset is so disenfranchised with what he perceives as the ultimate futility of his job that he is only one week from retirment and relocation when we first meet him. Yet despite his negative outlook on both his occupation and human existence, Somerset operates with nobility and integrity. He's no more an anti-hero than he is optimistic crusader.

So much of the film is taken up with chronicalling the seven days of interaction between Mills and Somerset that the character of the killer and his handiwork are chiefly a foil for bringing the two detectives together in pursuit of a common goal. In fact, the killer doesn't even have a true name (going by "John Doe" by personal preference), and he stays off screen until late in the third act. His arrival brings a stiff test of Mills' simplistic worldiew and of Somerset's more nihilistic convictions. The greatest suspense the film produces concerns whether or not either detective is capable of passing his respective test. The film's chaotic ending leaves us to sort out who "won" and who stayed most true what is "good" and "right." As my quotation marks should indicate, all these familiar terms are relativized before the picture concludes.

In a film where the audience sees little violence occur and not much of its physical effects, it is all the more impressive that Seven creates such a disturbing atmosphere. For me, the moral of the story is that the world John Doe inhabits is present independent of his own criminal actions; furthermore, it is our world too. Nevertheless, the world we live in is the only world we've got and it's this world we must simultaneously protect and challenge.

If you've never seen this film, I recommend you do so ASAP. If you haven't seen in recently, you owe it to yourself to watch it again.

3) Check out the MySpace profile for which I've provided a link below. Over the past several days, I kept seeing this dude's picture and username listed in the "Cool New People" section right below the login box. It's hard not to notice someone named Lucifer Lewis. His profile cracked me up for reasons that I hope are evident to you once you view it for yourself. The things that amused me became even more funny once I noticed his stated purpose for joining MySpace was "dating."

www.myspace.com/bewarethedarkarts

Behold Elwood!

2007-06-23T11:48:00.000-05:00

The newly crowned "World's Ugliest Dog"

A New Breed

2007-06-20T09:30:00.000-05:00

Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile will no doubt recall a bit of nomenclature I coined back in the fall: the K6 Bitch. In short, this was my alternative and spicy term for the "roaming teacher" assignments I often took during my time as a sub in the local township.

Well, it appears my days as a bitch are not over. Present circumstances, however, have led me to become a new breed: the house bitch.

In "A Subdued Existential Funk" I spoke of how I had been spending the weeks since the school year ended struggling to find a viable and rewarding source of income for the summer. Finding work in Indiana isn't particularly easy. Finding rewarding work is even harder and trying to find rewarding seasonal work is borderline impossible.

Thoughout my search for work, I was conflicted about how badly I even wanted a summer job (again, see my "Funk" post). A chief reason for my apprehension was the reality that this summer will be my last in Indiana for several years, if not the rest of my life. And my move to Denver is going to put my friends in the Midwest and the South out of convenient traveling range for a substantial chunk of time. In light of all this, what I've most wanted is to use this summer to savor my time with those friends and family I'll not see more than three times a year after my doctoral studies begin. Encouraging this mindset has been the fact that I earned enough dough during my last month as a sub to cover my bills until September, so I don't need to earn money this summer in the way I needed to during the fall, winter, and spring.

Nevertheless, there have been at least two compelling reasons to work this summer irrespective of pure necessity. First, there's the fact that I have a considerable move awaiting me at the end of this season. Moving isn't cheap and it would be nice to not have to raid my savings to fund that endeavor. Second, and maybe even more importantly, Susan and I had a serious discussion several weeks back about her and Perry not wanting me to be a free-loader this summer- eating their food, soaking up their AC, and doing nothing constructive for three months.

And yet that problem of finding rewarding summer work still hung over me. That work which can be readily secured for a season is low in pay even when one puts in high hours. That would mean seeing significantly less of those aforementioned loved ones during these "final days" while only earning (at best) around eight bucks an hour. Thankfully, when re-presenting these concerns over a recent family dinner, Susan (who, I should add, rarely ever utters a curse world) came up with a viable compromise/solution:

"You can be my bitch this summer, Dave. You wouldn't get paid for it but then we wouldn't mind you hanging around the house without a job either."

And her bitch, I have become. In short, I have taken over much of the domestic responsibilities of the household. I had chores before, of course, but now I have additional housekeeping duties. There are also special projects that will come my way from time to time. For example, I've already done some mulching for the first time and my life, and I've heard rumbling of a garage cleaning adventure just over the horizons. For those of you who have been following my status updates on Facebook, this is the type of activity I was referring to when I mentioned being a "house elf." I most often say house elf over bitch given its lesser likelihood to offend, as well as its greater appeal to the many Pot-heads I know.

"But what about the money to cover moving expenses?" you may be asking. "How will go about acquiring those funds now, Mr. Bitch?" Well, here's what I've been thinking:

Every summer since 2002, I've considered the possibility of selling my late father's baseball card collection. It's fairly large and composed of several complete sets, especially for the year 1991. One concerned friend recently asked me, "Do you think you're ready to part with your dad's baseball cards?" To which I was able to quickly respond, "Oh yeah! I don't think I could sell his comic book collection at this point, but I can sell his baseball cards no problem." You see, collecting comics was something my father and I did very much together, whereas trading cards were much more something my dad did on his own.

Selling these cards will not be a breeze, but it hopefully won't be terribly difficult either. There'll be a lot of sorting and organizing involved, and I'm sure I'll have to enlist the aid of eBay once that's all done. If I'm able to sell for a price near market value, I anticipate having enough to cover my moving expenses while freeing up a substantial amount of closet space in the process.

And that sums up what I've done about my summer employment situation.

Expanding My Territory in Cyberspace

2007-06-11T10:03:00.000-05:00

My Friends, I am expanding my communication horizons by registering for accounts with MySpace and Facebook. While the Kingdom of the Madness will still be my primary site for electronic expression, these other two sites are now each a means by which you may contact and keep in touch with me. If you choose not to take advantage of them, that is fine with me. Honestly, I'm still not confident that I will be using either on more than an occasional basis.

The MySpace profile I've set up may be found here:
www.myspace.com/davescott82

and since Facebook is a gated internet community, you'll have to have an account of your own to interact with me there.

I'm already committing myself to post all my meaningful reflections and reports right here, so don't feel like you have to check my other accounts to know what's going on with Dave Scott.

All that being said, I hope your respective weeks are starting well.

FINISHED!!!

2007-06-08T14:33:00.000-05:00

Early this afternoon I finished The Dark Tower, the seventh and final book in the Dark Tower series. Thus I was able to read the entire cycle inbetween May 9th and June 8th (and I even took a whole week off between volumes four and five). The total page count is roughly 4,550. This brisk pace was due not only to my great appreciation for the books but also the substantial amounts of free time my current, and hopefully brief, period of unemployment has allowed me.

Having come to the end, I would still highly recommend this series to anyone seeking to read an epic and high quality work of fiction. The fifth through seventh books, all written at essentially the same time, read like one cohesive tome. Book V, Wolves of the Calla, is jockying with The Drawing of the Three as my personal favorite installment in the series.

Anywho, that's the last I have to say about that.

A Subdued Existential Funk

2007-06-07T13:20:00.000-05:00

What follows is true, but the sentiments and feelings I share shouldn't be blown out of proportion. It's less than organized but it's not too long.

My sense and perception of my world has changed since Memorial Day. The change isn't necessarily radical but it's much deeper than superficial.

My sense of the world is different because the framework of my day has changed since the school year ended. For the last eight months, I was working as a substitute teacher. Though this job didn't pay a great deal or come with any benefits, it did give short-term meaning and short-term purpose to my individuals days, as well as the weeks and months composed by those days. Taking an assignment meant having a place to go and having responsibilities to assume. Being able to seek out and to accept assignments in advance gave me the ability to shape my future proactively and concretely.

Substitute teaching allowed me to do something I love; namely, working with children. And though filling in for elementary schools is a far cry from leading a course full of college students, I gained experience in the field of education. Something else positive about this position was that (once teachers and administrators began acknowledging my aptititude for the job) it allowed me to feel a sense of accomplishment in how I was spending my days and, more importantly, that fleeting sense we all chase in our work- that my actions and my words make some meaningful difference.

The school year ended May 24th, so my time as a substutitute teacher is over. I'm not so much upset that this job is over as I am dissappointed that I have to find some other means of making money for the next three months. I've had enough summer jobs to know there's little existential gratification to be had in them. And that rare ability to determine so much of my own schedule will be out the window. Instead of working with children, most of whom engaged me or even admired me immediately and unconditionally, I'm must go back into that imporsonal world of commerical transactions and near anonymous labor where I make very little difference.

This all hit me a week ago Wednesday. After the losing the buzz of being with dear friends over the holiday weekend, I finally stepped into a full awareness that my time as a sub was over and done. I remember rejoicing in August of '04 that I was "finally done with summer jobs." Only to find myself once again needing to find one, and loathing the situation. (I typed out most of a rather lengthy expounding why I feel this way and then quit because I thought such a post would be excessively self-indulgent and tedious for anyone else to read.)

My perception of the world changed significantly just a few days ago. I didn't learn something new about myself exactly, but I did receive a stunning revelation about how some in my inmost circle have come to view me and who they think I am- what my character is and what my motivations are. I won't be as detailed on this shift of perception as I was regarding my shift of sense because I don't want to name and potentially embarass those loves one to whom I refer.

What I will relate is that I was told something that invalidated much of the last year for me. Who they thought I was and what I was about was not a totally unfair assessment, but off base enough that I felt attacked. I learned that I have been regarded in a way and talked about in a way that I never detected and (maybe foolishly) never expected. The talk was not an angry arguement but truly a conversation of good will. By its conclusion, the assertions made about me were softened and some apologies made. There were hugs and expressions of genuine appreciation. Yet the assertions were never retracted, and I would be remiss to go on as if they were.

A revelation this big needs time to sink in properly. I'm finally self-confident enough to have stood up against claims about me I thought were false (which I do not regret). But I still need to be self-critical insofar as it enables me to see the grains of truth in those claims and make the corrections in myself.

The combined shift in my sense and perception of the world has led me to question whether or not there is some fundamental flaw in the way that I have lived my life as an adult. More specifically, it leaves me wanting the last year of my life back so I can redo it. Maybe if I think it's worthy of posting I'll expand more on these matters later. I apologize again for my clandestine language.

Long Overdue Congratulations

2007-05-31T06:39:00.001-05:00

So, what I believe was 17 days ago, Candler School of Theology held a commencement ceremony to honor those who completed their degree requirements during the 2006-07 academic year. When I was in Atlanta back in February, I told numerous...perhaps even scores...of people that I would most likely be back in town for graduation. This prediction, I am sorry to say, proved false. Not only did I fail to attend but, due to absorption in my own affaris and good old fashioned procrastination, I also failed to communicate my pride and happiness to those who graduated.

Until now.

To all the wonderful friends who are now hold the title of "Master," be it of "Divinity" or of "Theological Studies":

CONGRATULATIONS!!!

And to Beth, Dana, John, Jay, Rob, Ashlee, Russell, Joe, Andrew, David, Michael, Lane, Charity, Kacy and whoever else I told I would almost certainly see you walk, I apologize for my absence. I don't know how many of you actually read this darn blog, so I'm supplementing this post with transpatial emotional projection. I hope anyone who proves receptive to this transmission senses it as a case of the warm fuzzies and not as some sort of gastro-intestinal discomfort.

It may sound superficial but, to tell the truth, the main reason I didn't show was financial in nature. My job as a sub officially ended on the 24th and, with my move to Denver and the return of monthly rent on the horizon, I needed to earn as much chedda as I could before the opportunity to do so (at least as a teacher) had passed. The fact that it now cost me $45-$50 to fill my gas tank did nothing to ameliorate my money concerns either.

The reason I didn't call anyone to let them know about this in advance is because the above seems like shallow and inadequate grounds to not make the trip. Honestly, confessing it makes me feel more than shade of embarassment. Typing it out certianly revives my own sentiments of feeling like a dunce for passing up a once in a lifetime opportunity to be with good friends on a special day in favor of adding a few hundred dollars to my bank account.

Briefly, I want to reflect on why I personally thought it would be important for me to be there. First and foremost, I made a surprisingly number of good friends during my two years in Atlanta and I wanted to see them be recognized for the hard work they had completed. I especially wanted to be there to soak in their intense feelings of joy and relief to finally be done. When I began my graduate school experience back in August of 2004, those friends were the people who began that experience with me. Yet because the M.T.S. program is two years and the M.Div. three, I turned off the path, so to speak, a year earlier than most of my friends.

Several close friends graduated with me, namely Erin, George, Flack, and Scott. But I left at least twice that number behind. For that reason, I've had this dangling feeling inside me since I left Candler. I've loved being home in Indianapolis, don't get me wrong. Even still, those men and women that befriended me in Atlanta had made that southern city a very real home for me while I was down there, and that is why I wish I could have made more than one extended visit during the past year. I also thought that being at graduation, seeing all those accomplished persons be recognized, would put an end to my subtle sense of dangling.

Which brings me to my second and final reason for whishing I had been at graduation: Those few days surrounding graduation was the last time I would have had to see all those wonderful folks together in the city where we all became friends. Even more to the point, now that graduation has passed, I've realized that I may not see some folks again...or at least not see them for an extended period of time. The good news I received from Erin Miller on Tuesday was that more folks than I expected would stay in the Atlanta area are staying for the time being. That means I can still visit with many of you should I manage to get my big Irish butt down there before I make my move to the distant land of Colorado.

So, to sum up, I regret not being there, my friends. Even though a significant part of me knows I made a wise choice by staying put, another will always regret not being there to celebrate with you. Nevertheless, the most important fact to focus on is that all of you have graduated and your buddy Dave Scott is exceeding proud of each of you. Once again...Congratulations!

RAMPAGE!!!

2007-05-27T09:39:00.002-05:00

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson def. Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell by KO at 1:53 of Round 1.

He is now the new UFC Light Heavyweight Champion!

'Nuff Said.

More Books and an Exciting Match-Up

2007-05-25T08:09:00.000-05:00

A Dark Tower Update

On May 4, I ordered Volumes V-VII of the Dark Tower Series (in Mass Market Paper Back edition, of course) from Amazon.com. Just days prior to placing this order, I made the antecdent commitment to read the aformentiond volumes I already owned and figured I might as well add the concluding books to my collection. With each of the three books priced at $9.99, my order qualified for the much appreciated Super Saver Shipping. My confirmation e-mail from Amazon advised me to expect my purchase to arrive between May 14th and 16th.

What my friends and family may or may not know about me is that I am fairly obsessive when it comes to tracking an expected package. If the online resources to do so were not so conveniently available, I doubt I'd give a rip and would be content to received my purchase whenever it happened to show up at my doorstep. But Amazon is definitely one online vender that allows you to track your package, so I was keeping a close eye on where the box containing my books was located on any given day.

Frustratingly, said box didn't even ship until May 9th. However, the USPS tracking sytem informed me that the package was successfully delivered on the 12th, two whole days ahead of schedule. Ordinarily such news would have prodded my peculiar nature into being estastic, but not this time. Why was my joy held in check, you may ask? Because I did not have the supposedly delivered books in my possession, that's why.

The root of my problem is that I didn't check my personal information closely enough when I confirmed my order with Amazon. I had sent my desirable booty of books to my old apartment address in Decatur, Georgia! It seems I hadn't ordered anything from Amazon in well over a year and thus had an outdated address in my default shipping information.

To make a potentially long story short, I spoke with someone in the leasing office of my former aparrment complex on Monday the 14th about my screw up. In a Near Eastern accent, he told me that his office would return the package to the U.S. Postal Service who, in turn, would return it to Amazon as "undeliverable." That same day I sent an e-mail to Amazon customer service informing them of the situation and what was being done about it. The represtentative that replied told me that they could not forward the package to my Indianapolis address but they would refund my account once the returned items had been processed by their return center. If I still desired to own what I had bought, I would need to make a second order.

Last Friday, the 18th, I did precisely that (checking my personal info meticulously this time) and, on Wednesday, I received the my very own copies of The Wolves of Calla, Song of Susannah, and the appropriately named final volume, The Dark Tower. As of this moment, I've yet to receive a refund for my first order. Postively though, I don't think any negligence on the part of my old leasing office or the postal service can screw me out of thirty bucks because I have interpreted something the Amazon representative wrote to me as saying that my money will be refunded to my by June 13 whether their system confirms the return of the package or not. The moral of the story, kiddies, is always check your online orders closely before you click "Confirm."

For those who may be curious, I finished Wizard and Glass Wednesday evening. Thus I officially read four novels in two weeks and put about half the total page count of the series under my belt. It's only half because Volumes V and VII are both whoppers, clocking in at 950 and 1,050 pages repsectively. Volume VI, thankfully, is a manageable 560 pages. I've decided to take an open-ended break between the fourth and fifth books. I'd hate to burn myself out unnecessarily, you know.

UFC 71: Liddell vs. Jackson, This Saturday Night

I don't have as much to say about this fight I have other fights in the recent past. Both fighters are atheletes I greatly respect and enjoy watching compete. Neither of them, however, are a combatant I would classify as a "personal favorite," although Jackson comes pretty darn close to qualifying.

Irrespective of my personal allegiances, this match-up of the reigning Light Heavyweight Champion Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell and the deserving challenger Quinton "Rampage" Jackson is the most solid main event the UFC has booked thus far in '07. Of all the 205-pounders who were contractually available to face Chuck at the time this match was made, Jackson was truly the best fighter to award the status of No. 1 Contender. After seeing the UFC brass feed Chuck challengers who were not ready (Renato "Babalu" Sobral) or not deserving (Tito Ortiz), and then fail to secure the fight between Liddel and (now former) Pride champion Wanderlei Silva, it's thoroughly refreshing to see president Dana White and match maker Joe Silva (no relation) give us the best title fight they were capable of securing.

There has been suprisingly little hype surrounding such a quality pairing of top fighters- a pairing bolstered by several newsworthy subplots, at that. The story the UFC has understandably chosen to push is the fact that Rampage is the last person to defeat Chuck (nearly four years ago in Pride FC), and this defeat is the only one that the Iceman has yet to avenge. What they have inexplicably not chosen to push is the fact that a Liddell victory gives him 5 consecutive title defenses, which is a UFC record (presently co-held by Matt Hughes and Tito Ortiz). Such an accomplishment, combined with a stellar record and no unavenged losses, would cement him as the top Light Heavyweight in UFC history if not the world, and puts him in solid contention for the greatest MMA fighter of all-time.

A Rampage victory, on the other hand, would give the UFC a dymanic and charasmatic new champion whose versatile skill set would guarantee a compelling title fight with any number of potential challengers. Even though Chuck is presently the face of MMA in America, the man himself is relatively soft spoken and not nearly as colorful a personality as his mohawk would suggest. If Jackson is anything, he's marketable and entertaining on the microphone.

Adding to the interest of this fight is the UFC's rumored acquistion of Mauricio "Shogun" Rua.

The Brazilian Shogun has established himself as the No. 2 205-lb fighter in the world (behind only Liddell) during his time in Pride FC, where his most notable achievement is having won the 2005 Pride Middleweight Grand Prix. Many journalists and fans believe Shogun would have been the Pride 205-lb champion over a year ago if his mentor and stablemate Wanderlei Silva had not been the man already holding that title. Rua never wanted to fight his close friend and so remained content to wait for his time in the championship spotlight.

The American branch of Rua's training camp, Chute Boxe Academy, reported on its website earlier this week that Shogun was now officially under contract to the UFC. Dana White indirectly corroborated this report on Thursday when he told reporters that the challenger to the winner of Liddell-Jackson would be an imported fighter. Hardcore followers of the sport are now salivating over the seemingly high possibility of seeing Mauricio "Shogun" Rua make an appearance in the Octogon tonight and be declared the next contender to the Light Heavyweight throne. If Chuck wins tomorrow night, Liddell vs. Rua will pit the best two fighters in the world in their weight class against one another with gold on the line. If Rampage prevails, a high profile confrontation with Shogun is easily marketable because Shogun defeated Rampage convincingly on his way to securing his Grand Prix title. And it should now be clear to even the most casual UFC fan that the UFC brass looooooove a rematch.

If there was ever a night to tune into the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Saturday night is it. Whether Liddell vs. Sobral lasts 2 minutes or 5 full rounds, it's bound to be an exciting and important fight. Plus, the undercard is loaded with competitive match-ups, even if it is lacking in other big names or further championship implications. I, for one, will be pulling for Rampage. As I said, I like both fighters, and I wouldn't mind seeing Chuck having his hand raised. But my stronger allegience is with Quinton and I will be unabashedly rooting for him once the action is underway.

Making My Way to the Dark Tower

2007-05-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

Alternate Title: Dustin's $8 Investment Pays Off

Stephen King. For my money, he is a highly skilled and consistently solid author. He represents that rare, enriching phenomenon in popular culture: a huge commercial success with true artistic integrity. Known first and foremost as a master of horror for books like The Shining and Pet Semetery, the man's word processor has also given the world stories such as The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me (published as The Body), and the non-fiction On Writing.

Ironically, I've never read any of the writings I just listed. However, a recent bit of introspection revealed to me that I have read more of Stephen King's books than I have any other author's in any other genre. Unless one views the Bible as being made up of 66-71 truly individual books, each one being similarly authored by the Holy Spirit. In that event, the Paraclete trounces King as my most read composer of written works.

The Requisite Lengthy Preface
(Skip to the Next Heading If You're Not Feeling into Excessive Verbiage Today)

My relationship with the famous (human) author began with Night Shift. The fact that this volume is a collection of short stories made it a logical choice to be the first book of his that I, still a junior high age kid with a far less rigorous attention span than I now possess, ever read.

Next came The Running Man, more of a novella really, which I received English credit for reading during my sophomore year of high school...and at a conservative, Christian school no less. My lasting memories of this text are a) it's substantially different from the Arnold action film it inspired and. b) it introduced me to the word "pudenda."

Soon thereafter, I read The Green Mile. Released as a serial novel, I read the first three parts consecutively and the last three several months later. A couple years later I would read the lengthy Desperation in 3 days or less, and then its genetic companion The Regulators during my junior year of college.

From about 1994-1996, I practiced the bad habit of asking for books I thought looked cool and then basically ignoring these volumes once I received them. I only made it 30 pages or so into The Stand before I gave up on that epic mamma jamma. Insomnia still sits in my closet entirely un-paroused. Rage, Roadwork, and The Long Walk (which came bound together with The Running Man) are three further works of which I've not read a single page. There was even a well-worn copy of It that came briefly into my possession before I passed it off to Mark Schwartzkopf.

This summer, when I was searching for gainful employment and feeling guilty about watching copious amounts of television, I rediscovered my largely unread Stephen King collection. My longtime friend Aaron Homoya had just finished reading Firestarter and was preparing himself to tackle The Stand (which he did successfully), and his adventures in imagination inspired my own literary course Ending a 3-year hiatus from King's books, I read two of the books already in my possession: Skeleton Crew, his second collection of short stories, immediately followed by his third, Nightmares & Dreamscapes.

When Christmas time rolled around, I asked for one of his most recent writings, the zombie-esque scary story Cell, which I read this past winter. Cell brought my grand total of wholly consumed Stephen King books to eight. This number raised to nine after I consumed King's fourth, and presumably final short story compendium, Everything's Eventual.

The Dark Tower and Mr. Lafferty's Eight Bucks

Yet, for all the thousands of pages I have read of his writings, I long avoided delving into what he personally acknowledges as his master work: the epic Dark Tower series.

The urge to read these books honestly didn't take hold of me until roughly 5 years ago. During my mostly jobless summer of 2002, I read 14 books covering several different genres. (Noticing a pattern here.) Foremost among these texts was J.R.R. Tolkien's widely revered Lord of the Rings trilogy. Together with The Hobbit, these books showed me the deep joy one can experience from immersing oneself in an elaborate and extensive work of imaginative fiction. In discussing how much I liked these books with Mark, he shared with me how much he enjoyed what had been published of the Dark Tower series. When Mark told me the fact that most of the fan mail Stephen King receives concerns this series, I knew then and their that I owed it to myself to explore what all the hubbub was about.

Committing myself to that exploration proved to be the most difficult. At the time, Mark and I had our little chat, four Dark Tower volumes were in print: The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, The Wastelands, and Wizard and Glass. Knowing full well how many unread King novels I had piled up at home, I procrastinated on purchasing these texts out of the fear that they would suffer similar neglect. So I made a promise to myself: If I ever saw all four books in mass market paperback edition available at the same bookstore, I would buy them then and there. I further qualified that the packaging of each book must reflect that they came from the same printing. I was especially adamant on this point seeing as Signet had just re-released much of the Stephen King catalogue wrapped in snazzy, newly designed cover art.

For nearly a year, whenever I went to a Barnes & Noble or a Borders, I check the shelves in their Literature & Fiction section to see if they had the inventory necessary for me to honor my vow. Every time I checked, however, I would run into the same hitch. Volume 3, The Wastelands, was never available. Around the time I was reading The Regulators, I informed my friend and then roommate Dustin Laffterty of my "Dark Tower resolution" and the problems I was having fulfilling it.

Less than two weeks later, Dustin surprised me with a copy of The Drawing of the Three.

When I asked Dustin why he had chosen to give me this most welcome gift he said something to the extent that: "I was at the Barnes & Noble in Castleton [on the north side of Indianapolis] and saw that they had all four of the books you were talking about. I couldn't remember exactly which one you said you couldn't find but I thought it was that one. I figured maybe if I bought it four you, it would encourage you to buy the rest of them."

To this day, I still feel honored that Dustin would invest $8 in my future reading endeavors driven by no other factor than his own goodwill towards yours truly. What I can't remember for sure is whether or not I risked killing the buzz of that warm moment by informing Dustin that he had not, in fact, bought the book I could never find. Nonetheless his investment spurred on my own. That same weekend, I traveled to the same bookstore where he had been and discovered that the other three books were indeed there. I purchased them immediately. I left that Barnes & Noble confident that I would begin reading them in the very near future. After all, I had just dropped twenty-four of my own dollars on top of what Dustin had spent on my behalf.

WRONG! Whenever enough space opened up in my personal schedule to do some recreational reading, I found the task of reading my Dark Tower books too daunting to take on. True, the first volume, The Gunslinger, was only 300 pages. But each successive volume considerably outdid its predecessor in terms of length, so that volume four Wizard and Glass is 700 pages of print much smaller that the font featured on the pages of The Gunslinger.

Breaking the Seal

Fortunately, I have become much more ambitious in my reading in recent years. And after adjusting to reading 100 or more pages of theology/philosophy a week during my two years at Candler, I've learned that reading a 600-page novel really isn't that ominous of a task. This point was really brought home for me at the beginning of the present month when I read Everything's Eventual (583 pages) in 11 days. One of the stories contained therein is a mini-novel called The Little Sisters of Eluria. The protagonist of this tale is Roland the Gunslinger, the central character from the Dark Tower Series.

Little Sisters is a "prequel" of sorts and reading it lead me to realize that now was the ideal time to finally join Roland on his quest to reach the Dark Tower. Once I begin my Ph.D. program in the fall, I expect to have little time for any sort of recreational reading for the next several years...let alone recreational reading in the quantity this series will require of me. In all, the Dark Tower saga is made up of seven books, and the later volumes continue the pattern of increasing substantially in length. (Stephen King wrote parts 5-7 in close succession, releasing the final volume in late 2004.) I'm hoping to complete the whole shebang by the time classes begin in September.

I'm off to a hell of start. I started reading The Gunslinger a week ago Wednesday (May 9th) and, as of today (May 20), I am halfway through Wizard and Glass. That's 1722 pages read over the course of 12 days! At this pace, I might only take me about two weeks to finish a quartet of books it took me five years to get started on. Although the rapidity with which I am moving through them is more a testament to the high quality of the material than it is to any skill or strength of commitment on my part. Obviously, I'm enjoying myself.

I will close this long-winded reflection with two personalized comments:

Mark, you once told me that you thought the quality of the series dropped off a bit with The Wastelands but picked right back up in Wizard and Glass. I concur 100%, my friend.

Dustin, of the books I've read, my favorite volume is undeniably The Drawing of the Three. I thought you might appreciate knowing that your money was well spent. Sorry it took my four years to finally capitalize on your generosity. :)

Floyd, Oscar, and the Two Daves

2007-05-06T13:23:00.000-05:00

Thanks to my good friend, Dave Winters, I had the opportunity to watch the much hyped, heavily anticipated squared circle showdown between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. My interest in the combat sport of MMA brings me into repeated contact with the more storied sport of boxing, and I find myself more than a little hungry to deepen my understanding of the "sweet science." And any hungry novice should have a quality guru to steer his education- someone who is better versed than oneself in some field, craft, or hobby who is willing to impart some of what he or she has in ample quantity. As of the last couple of months, Dave is my boxing guru, and I his novice.

A truly healthy novice-guru relationship requires not only mutuality of interest, but common affinity of spirit. The novice must be humble and receptive. The guru must not be proud or condescending. The novice needn't feel inferior for seeking guidance in one area of life because, while one may be a novice in one aspect, one may be a guru in another aspect of comparable importance. Thus, while Dave Winters is my boxing guru, and Aaron Homoya is my beer guru, I tend to be the guru of mixed marital arts within my circle of friends (hence the frequents posts on the subject). I enjoy this interlinking of novice-guru relationships because it exemplifies concretely in my life the spirit of community I have heard praised as an abstract ideal in my theological studies. When you're humble enough to bow to the expertise of your friends, they'll be more inclined to acknowledge your own authority when you brings insights from your own area(s) of expertise to the table, and vice versa.

So there I am, sitting on a black leather couch in Broad Ripple, drinking Smithwick's for the first time and watching the most anticipated boxing match in years alongside my own personal professor of pugilism. He gives me a heads up on De La Hoya's championship history, the Philly Shell, and why Floyd Mayweather Sr. can't form a coherent sentence. HBO's countdown show is most helpful and informative, but Dave's commentary further supplements and enriches my personal preparation for the fight. His enthusiasm and knowledgeability reaffirms for me that boxing is a worthwhile sport to invest oneself in and, inherent to its constitution, boxing mirrors MMA's ability to hold beauty and violence together in a tension that is both entertaining and enriching for its fans. Dave enjoys MMA as well, but his love for boxing is more true and runs deeper. And that makes him a good guru for me. He has the requisite expertise in his area, while having a genuine appreciation for and respectable knowlege base in my mine. (I must confess that his knowledge of MMA far surpasses my present knowledge of boxing.)

The amicable character of our fellowship last night goes against the grain of a commonly held perception propogated by the media. Going into the Mayweather-De La Hoya bout, a prominent storyline invovled the importance of this event for the present state of boxing. This fight has drawn the attention of mainstream sports media and the causual fan in a way that few fights have in recent years. Boxing has been on the decline, especially among folks in that coveted 18-35 demographic. In the past two years, these people have been getting their combat fix from the new kid on the block, Mixed Martial Arts, more specifically the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Under the perceived threat that MMA is cutting into the audience and profits of boxing, many of boxing's prominent figures have taken it upon themselves to defend their sport by berating its relatively new competitor. HBO boxing commentator Jim Lampley is one of MMA's most vocal and vehement opponents.
(I've commented on him before. https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=34647227&postID=115915189084971417)

Certain key voices in MMA, like UFC President Dana White, have been equally confrontation in responding when disparaging comments are made about the new breed of fighters and the legitimacy of their craft. Fans on both sides have followed suit, flooding message boards with heated posts that exemplify an either/or mentality. As Dave Winters frequents the boxing forums, and Dave Scott lurks on MMA chatrooms, we have found that too few contributors who see through the hype created by figure heads pushing their respective products and instead adovocate a relationship of mutual appreciation between the representatives of both combat sports.

Mayweather himself raised the ire of Dana White in the weeks leading up to last night's event, only to retract his statements at the post-fight press conference.
http://www.fightnews.com/boxing/bc/perea100.htm
(Skip to the last 3 paragraphs of the article for the relevant quotations.)

Lampley, on the other hand, maintained his previous position during his post-fight analysis, even if it was more diplomatically expressed. Fortunately, the comments Max Kellerman made on the broadcast soon thereafter counterbalanced Lampley's more biased claims.
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3897&zoneid=13

At night's end, I enjoyed watching the PPV. All three televised fights went to a decision but the first fight was an exciting featherweight battle and the main event held my interest the entire fights. Far from a flashy slugfest or grudge match shootout, Mayweather vs. De La Hoya played out as a battle of wills where the winner turned out to be the one who executed his gameplan must effectively in the eyes of the judges. I don't think a fight has to be a barnburner to be compelling, and for at least the first 9 rounds last night, this bout was certainly compelling. It would have been even more exciting if Oscar could have gone for a rolling kneebar at some point. :)

All in all, it was a good night of fun with my guru. Dave, if your reading this, I'd gladly watch the next PPV you order up.

A Grab Bag of Little Reflections

2007-04-28T15:10:00.000-05:00

+ Work's been easy as of late. Easy to the point that I think I'm getting spoiled. After I finish my assignment for Monday, I will have gone the entire month of April without working a single day where a) I and I alone was in charge of b) one classroom full of students for c) an entire day. The next day all three of these conditions are satisfied by one assignment I may very well crumble to the floor in a moment of overwhelmedness and assume the fetal position.

+ On Tuesday, I contacted the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology to confirm officially that I will be joining their program in the fall. Now I need to start making arrangements for where in the Denver area I'm going to live. The phone conversation I had with an admissions rep on Tuesday made me aware of the fact that Iliff has its own equivalent to Turner Village- the apartment complex for seminary students at Emory (which, sadly, is about to be torn down [cue single tear]).

I'm thinking I'll adopt the strategy that worked out for me in Atlanta- be placed with a roommate in a student apartment for the first year and find superior living arrangments for the subsequent years once I make new friends and better acquaint myself with other possible living situations. I wonder if the roommate I may have in the campus apartment will clear his throat or giggle his balls as often as the one I had in Atlanta. (My Candler friends had to know that joke was coming.)

+I'm absolutely loving my new stereo. This mini-HiFi system is far and away the best quality sound system I've ever owned.

Jesus once said to his disciples, "Behold, I make all things new." What I think he meant by that was not that he was regenerating everything and everyone around him (not at that point in history anyway) but rather that the revelation he ushered in causes its recipients to see the already existing world in a new, and ostensibly improved, way.

To draw a secular parallel on a more mundane level, my stereo has made all the music I own seem new. For the last two weeks, I've been rediscovering the beauty and craftsmanship present with scores of albums covering numerous genres and styles. This situation became especially wonderful after I bought the cable necessary to hook my laptop up to my stereo. Now I can conveniently access any song from 9.5 days worth of music and play it through some top notch speakers. Sounding especially good on my system are the albums
Chrome by Catherine Wheel, Thirteenth Step by A Perfect Circle, and The Proposition soundtrack I recently purchased.

+ One of the staff writers for the UFC's webpage wrote an impressively concise yet comprehensive meditation on who the greatest UFC fighter of all time may be. It's definitely worth a read.

http://www.ufc.com/index.cfm?fa=news.detail&gid=5628

+ Perhaps this last bit will be T.M.I. for some of you but the idea amuses me too much not to mention:

On Sunday, April 29th (which is tomorrow), it will have been 12 months since the last day I had any "intimate time" with a ladyfriend. That fact inspires me to ask the question...After a full calendar year of such inactivy, will I automatically revert back to being asexual?

Upsets Galore! (a short recap)

2007-04-24T21:06:00.000-05:00

Three high profile UFC events, three major upsets. Two champions lost their titles and the lofty expectations for one high profile free agent were violently shattered.

Even those of you who simply skim my lengthy reports on the increasingly popular sport of Mixed Martial Arts are likely to have noticed a common theme recurring. And that theme, my friends, is the major upset. Because MMA is such a multi-faceted sport, victory can come to a competitor in any number of ways and no one competitor can be perfectly trained in all the many disciplines this hybrid sport encompasses. Thus even the fighter who seems most well-rounded, most invincible can be defeated by a far less reputed fighter if the latter man (or woman) happens to be more "on" in just one area of the game than he (or she) is that night.

But these most recent underdogs have been defying the odds in such peculiar and astounding ways that the term "unexpected" is growing bulbously pregnant with new meaning. The fact each upset has come in such rapid succession makes them all the more flabbergasting.

Here's a succinct report of these upsets and why they were especially astounding:

UFC 68: 43 year-old Randy Couture comes out of retirement to challenge UFC Heavyweight Champion Tim Sylvia who, on paper, is a nightmare matchup for Couture. Sylvia is physically huge, possesses a good sprawl, and is a potent striker. Even many of Randy's most ardent supporters expect that Sylvia will use his size and skill to neutralize Couture's potent wrestling attack and then brutally KO their hero.

RESULT: Couture outstrikes, outmuscles, and altogether dominates his younger foe on the way to capturing his third heavyweight title.

UFC 69: Reality show winner Matt Serra receives a title shot in the 170-lb division against the extremely athletic and well-rounded champion George St. Pierre. He is smaller, older, and boasts a much less impressive resume than the champ. Objective critics generously concede that Serra has a respectable chance of submitting St. Pierre if the challenger can take the fight to the floor. Most likely, however, Matt Serra will die in battle.

RESULT: Serra wins the UFC Welterweight Championship belt by battering St. Pierre with heavy punches on the feet, and secures a technical knockout in the opening round by continuing to pummel his dazed opponent on the ground until the referee pushes him away.

UFC 70: In a Number One Contender's match, prized acquisition Mirko "Cro Cop" Filipovic faces Gabriel Gonzage, the winner getting a shot at newly crowned heavyweight kingpin Randy Couture. Cro Cop enters the UFC as the #2-ranked heavyweight in the entire sport. Countless world-class fighters have been put to sleep by his powerful punches and vicious high kicks. Little is known about Gonzaga but he is mostly regarded as a token stepping stone for Mirko as the Croation marches his way toward UFC gold. Much as they said about Serra, honest insiders and spectators concede that Gonzaga might actualize his slim chances for success by utilizing his superior ground skills. Unfortunately for him, Mirko Cro Cop has aruably the greatest takedown defense in all of MMA.

RESULT: Gonzaga knocks Cro Cop out with a right high kick at the end of the first round. Mirko is not simply given a dose of his own medicine. Gonzaga's single stirke is so brutal that the unconscious Cro Cop is folded over on himself.

It's still to early to identify what the fallout will be from all this upheaval. Whatever the final consequences, what is clear is that the UFC's plans for the rest of the year are severely wrecked. Hardcore and casual fans alike are befuddled by the colossal unpredictability of MMA. To all this I say: What a beautiful sport!

More in-depth personal commentary shall follow once I've had more time to digest all of these crazy events. The purpose of this post was simply to catch all interested parties up to speed.

Apathy and Indecision

2007-04-17T21:54:00.000-05:00

That tag team makes for an increasingly dormant corner of the blogosphere. For those of you who make a habit of checking in on the Kingdom of the Madness, I apologize for my recent lack of material. I'm trying to put at least one worthwhile thing up a week. Perchance I should live up to a more admirable goal...say there posts a week.

Until just recently, I was far from alone in my infrequent posting. If you had been tracing the links from my blog, you would have seen that the friends who command those other pages were at least equally reserved in their offerings. Now I don't know if these folks were also suffering from the twin maladies I named above or if their finest efforts are going into MySpace and Facebook. Whatever the causes, the effect had been a measley, collective level of creative output from myself and my blogging compatriots.

Now I use the verb phrase "had been" because both Erin (author of Resonance) and Dana (auther of Authenticity) have been posting some high quality and significant thoughts the past several days. So if you've come here looking for meaningful human exchange, I recommend you direct your attentions toward their more attention-worthy pages.

As for what I've been doing as of late, here's a quick laundry list of noteworthy things that I've done or experienced in the past couple of weeks:

1) I bought a $200 dollar home stereo system today. I don't usually make entertainment purchases over twenty bucks so it's out of character for me to splurge like this. It's a purchase I'd been meaning to make for (no joke) almost 5 years now. Thank the Lord for roommates with great audio set-ups. :)

2) This self-indulgant spending was made possible by my car insurance company's payback program. Since I've been with them for five years and never made a single claim, they've generously decided to give me half my first year's payments back. Thus they cut me a check for $1,018.

3) Last week, I filled in for a fourth grade teacher whose student made a particularly unwise purchase. She was showing off a leprechan coin she acquired from her brother at recess. However, even a superficial inspection of the coin revealed that it was, in fact, a game token from Chuck E. Cheese. (It's got his damn picture on it for Pete's sake.) The student informed me that she had bought it off her brother for $5. Upon hearing this fact, my exact words to her were, "You got hosed." I then playfully rubbed salt in her wounds by explaining that here "leprechan coin" was only worth 25 cents at Chuck E. Cheese and worth diddly-poo anywhere else.

4) The Joint Ph.D. Program at the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology sent me a letter which stated that, should I accept their invitation for admission, 100% of my tuition would be waved for the first year. It looks like the trajectory of my future in now pointed decidedly in the direction of the Rocky Mountains.

5) I subbed in a preschool classroom today. It was a lot of fun. I'll be back in that room Thursday and Friday as well. It's gonna be a good week, bitches.

6) I've made a few cosmetic alterations to the appearance and content of my blog. I encourage you to browse.

Crazy Happenings in MMA

2007-04-09T11:11:00.000-05:00

1) Saturday night at UFC 59, Georges St. Pierre took to the Octogon for his first title defense. Riding a 5 fight win streak over top shelf competition, with the fifth victory being a demolition of long-time champ Matt Hughes, Georges put his welterweight title on the line against Matt Serra. Georges came into this match up as the overwhelming favorite. After handling established veterans like Hughes, Frank Trigg, and Sean Sherk, fans began speculating whether or not St. Pierre might be the best pound-for-pound mixed martial artist on the planet.

Serra, on the other hand, secured his title shot by winning the UFC's reality show The Ultimate Fighter 4: The Comeback. Serra was brought onto the show because he, like the other contestants, had a mediocre UFC record and had never established a championship caliber career. Already in his later 30's, Serra had his best performances fighting in the 155-lb lightweight class rather than in the 170-lb class over which St. Pierre was king. Serra hadn't even won his division on The Comeback convincingly, having only eeked out an unconvincing split decision over Indy's own Chris Lytle.

Literally no one in the MMA press was picking picking Serra to take the gold away from the younger, more athletic, and much larger champion. The fact that Serra was even fighting for a title was considered by many (including me) to be an unfortunate consequence of the UFC's decision to promise title shots to a reality show's contestants. The welterweight division is the deepest in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and Saturday night's main event was a largely an unwelcome diversion from more interesting championship possibilities, such as a trilogy making rematch with Matt Hughes. Even though I think Serra is a likeable guy, I was personally rooting for GSP to squash his challenger as quickly as possible so that the UFC would do everything in its power to prevent such a mismatch of a title fight from ever happening again.

The final result? MATT SERRA IS THE NEW UFC WELTERWEIGHT CHAMPION OF THE WORLD! Not only did Serra win, he won by Technical Knock Out in the first freaking round.

It still blows my mind that a prototypical warrior like St. Pierre got put down so easily and, on top of it, lost his title without one successful defense. The silver lining here for me is that my boy Hughes is next in line for a title shot. I'm praying that Matt Serra has already used up all the lighting he had in his bottle. If he indeed has, Hughes will become only the second 3-time champion in UFC history (a record just set by Randy Couture last month).

2) About 30 minutes ago, I saw a 3-second clip of Serra knocking down St. Pierre on Sports Center's "Ultimate Highlight Reel" right alongside clips of the NBA, the PGA, and MLB. I think we can now officially say that the UFC has infiltrated the mainstream. If Jim Lampley saw this same program, he probably shit himself in a moment of surprise and disgust. Let's just hope he didn't get so mad he hit another woman.

3) Tito Ortiz tried to start some crap at ringside with his next opponent Rashad Evans. Evans is currently undefeated and one of the UFC's top rising talents. Here's a video and some commentary about the altercation.

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/showthread.php?threadid=547170

I'm on Break

2007-04-06T17:08:00.000-05:00

Hey Friends,

I apologize for the recent silence. Since Saturday morning, I've been traveling and engaging in activities I deem worthy of doing on Spring Break.

Last weekend was a college reunion of sorts as Dave Winters and I traveled down to Lexington, KY to visit Mr. and Mrs. Doost. Unfortunatley, my plans to visit Erin Miller in western Kentucky fell through, but the silver lining in being home a couple days earlier than planned was that I was in town to help Nick "Mr. T" Tranbarger celebrate his 26th birthday.

After laying low at home for half a day, I made the relatively short jaunt down to the town of my birth to visit my grandparents and my middle brother Jarrod, as well as other extended family. Returning from Bloomington on Thursday afternoon, I once again met up with the Tranbarger clan to watch a free UFC card on TV. My high school chum Emily Reichart and her family were also present for the fights, a chili dinner, and plenty of fun with children two and under.

Today was a day for cinephilia. This afternoon I attended a 12:30 showing of the glorious Grindhouse double feature (which I give a combined four thumbs up), and this evening I will watch Babel at home with Susan.

My plans for tomorrow are thus far sparse and simplistic: laundry during the day, UFC 69 at night. In an interesting turn of events, my friends and I will not be ordering this particular UFC Pay-Per-View but opting to watch it a local watering hole instead. After making a few calls to inquire which establishments planned to carry it, it look like Nick and I will be completing our social hat trick for the week by heading to Hooters.

[Now what really makes this turn of events interesting to me is that this will be the first time I will have patronized a Hooters in my homestate. I've been to Hooters in Georgia (to see UFCs 58 and 59), North Carolina (UFC 60), and Kentucky (an afternoon pit stop for wings on the way to Dustin's last July), but never a local chapter.]

The last day of my break, Sunday, is of course Easter. This day will hold many reasons for celebration. First, there's the fact of Jesus Christ's resurrection...you know, that event that broke death's stranglehold over fallen humanity. Second, my immediate family shall partake of pizza from Union Jack's, which is a pricey yet scrumptuous delicacy. And, finally, Sunday morning marks the end of Lent and hence all my Lenten commitments to abstain from ice cream, chocolate, cookies, and various restaurant chains. I'm looking forward to having some ice cream most of all.

So that's what I've been up to. I hope Holy Week has been enjoyable for all of you as well.

King of Kindergarten?

2007-03-28T20:08:00.000-05:00

I've been working a lot with the tiny humans as of late. Last Thursday and Friday I taught the same kindergarten class on consecutive days. They were a handful, but I'd take a borderline crazy group of kidney gardeners over intermediate grade punks 10 times out of 10.

On Monday of this week, I subbed in another kindergarten class at a different school. That group was much more attentive and a fair bit easier to enjoy teaching. (Althought their room did have one of those diminutive johns. I thought about using that one but ultimately decided against it. "...fool me twice...")

This morning, during a super easy half-day of roaming, I spent about 70 minutes working for yet a third kindergarten teacher. The heart of my duties centrally involved putting staples into walls or pulling staples out of them. I also used a nifty cutting contraption to make the words "SOARING HIGH" with construction paper.

Finally, tomorrow I will have another full day with Grade 0. This class is two doors down from the one I was in at the end of last week. This school has 5 kindergarten classes and, after tomorrow, I will have subbed in four of them. That means I've recently spent a lot of time using glue sticks, listening to music designed to spur on gross motor development, and singing the days of the week to the tune of the Adams Family theme.

MMA Takeover

2007-03-26T05:56:00.000-05:00

[NOTE: As of March 27, the speculated sale of Pride Fighting Championships to the UFC's parent company, Zuffa L.L.C., is official. In short, UFC owner Lorenzo Ferttitta told Japanese press that Pride FC will continue to function as a separate entity from the UFC. He likened this purchase to the NFC-AFC merger that created the NFL. See the comments section for more of my thoughts and links to other articles.]

The Ultimate Fighting Championship is far and away the top Mixed Martial Arts organization in North America. In fact, American fans identify the UFC so closely with the sport of MMA that the public and media alike often refer to MMA simply as "ultimate fighting." The truth of the matter is that, for the bulk of its existence, the UFC was not even close to being the world's top MMA orginazation. That place of distinction belonged to Pride Fighting Championships.

Based in Japan, Pride FC was the home of most the world's best fighters from roughly 1998 until just recently, when its future was threatened by news of internal corruption and Yakuza (Japanese mob) connections. The most immediate and devastating consequence of these reports was that Pride FC lost its contract with major Japanese television network Fuji TV- a contract the company has tried in vain to secure with another network. To get a sense of how huge a turn of events this was in Japan, imagine if scandal rocked the NFL so thoroughly that it was no longer broadcast on television in America.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the UFC has been flourishing ever since its reality show on Spike TV (The Ultimate Fighter) has brought it mainstream attention in the U.S. The UFC is run by the company Zuffa L.L.C., which in turn is owned by casino moguls Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta. This morning weeks of speculation was confirmed: the Fertittas (but not the UFC itself, mind you) have purchased Pride FC.

Now there is no relationship in mainstream American sports that parallels the competitive relationship that Pride FC and the UFC have shared for nearly a decade. In American sports culture, there is presently only one major league for each major sport. The best analogy I can think of involves imagining that all the European basketball leagues were one big league and had a total profitability comparable to the NBA. Then NBA stuggles financially and is sold to the owners of the European league and is henceforth run as a European entity. For you pro-wrestling fans, the Fertittas purchasing Pride FC mirrors (to respectable degree, at least) Vince McMahon buying WCW after nearly being put out of business by that company during the Monday Night War.

Here is a link to the online article I read this morning:
http://www.mmaweekly.com/absolutenm/templates/dailynews.asp?articleid=3669&zoneid=2

Any further thoughts I have on this topic will be made in the comments section of this post.

What I Learned Today

2007-03-21T19:54:00.000-05:00

Every student is a unique and special flower. My central objective as a substitute teacher should be to facilitate the flourishing of each flower as much as I am capable. All students should be given the space to spread their petals and soak up the greatest amount of sunshine possible. Whenever I may try to discipline them, I should never ever use a stern tone, candidly identify the ways they are misbehaving, or physically infringe upon their personal space. Engaging in such activities accomplishes nothing of worth. It only casts a dark cloud of negativity over a precious plant and robs it of vital sunlight.

Never again will I allow my own sense of self-respect to interfere with my duty of being a good gardener. No matter how many thorns or nettles a flower may boast, it is not my place to judge the flower, let alone to prune its harmful features. Time outs are not punishments, but rather designated times for students to better take command of their own development. Being sent to the office is not to be presented to the student as something negative, but as a positive opportunity to refocus the trajectory of one's flourishing. As a gardener, I am not there to impose my own values of propriety on the children. I am only their to serve each flower's self-driven growth.

Today I spent my first 2 hours of a roaming assignment with some 5th graders. Unfortunately, I had to fill out two Level 2 forms before 10am. One student refused to leave the classroom to serve his time out so I had to call the office to have him removed. The other student, a girl, spoke disrespectfully to me the entire time I was filling out her form and then told me she didn't care if she got in trouble or not. So I gave her a Level 3 immediately and sent her to the office instead of another classroom. I could just have easily filled out forms for at least 3 other students in the class for similar behavior, except for at some point during my stay in that room I actually needed to discuss something resembling academic material.

30 minutes later, I'm the one being talked to by the assistant principal. The two paragraphs of italicized horseshit above expresses the subtext I identified in what this man said to me. Apparently when a kid runs across the classroom and then disrupts the other students by refusing to sit at his desk and work, it is wrong of me to put my face 4 inches from his and tell him his behavior is unacceptable. And after his classmate spends the better part of the morning talking down to me as if I'm nothing, it is wrong of me to tell her that, "It's not part of my job to be publicly disrespected by some punk kid." I was told the student "internalized" my comment and cried upon arriving at the office. Which strikes me as funny (the peculiar "funny") because she was still bragging that she didn't care about what I thought as she walked out the door with her Level 3 form in hand. Mr. Assistant Principal showed me today that when the kids piss in your face, the only appropriate response is to take it without complaining. When the adversarial disposition of his precious flowers created a situation of "students vs. the sub," he took their side.

This is the third time in three weeks I've felt the administrators of the schools I work in have hung me out to dry in a difficult situation. And as my last couple of posts have shown, this state of affairs is taking all the fun out of my job...and my blog. Recently I've been feeling as uncertain about my future as I have in about 15 years, and now my present is becoming an increasingly unpleasant situation. Even my jovial nature is finding it hard to identify something to laugh at in all of this.

...but I'm sure I will quite soon. Like Beyonce, I too am a survivor.

More Ph.D. News

2007-03-19T16:54:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I finally received my letter from the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt. Unfortunately, it was full of condolances rather than congratulations. Towards the end of the letter, there was a statment to the effect that "Due to the great increase in the number of applications we received this year, we have had to deny admission to many well-qualified applicants." My consolation prize is that I am such an applicant.

Of course, I'm disappointed about this. Yet, given the fact that my top choice just shot me down, I'm surprisingly mellow. I haven't felt the temptation to cry, to smash things, or even to feel sorry for myself. I have felt a few pangs of anxiety since I realized that my academic future now rests with Denver and how much financial aid UD/Iliff is willing to offer me. Irrespective of those concerns, being rejected by Vanderbilt does narrow my immediate future down to two general trajectories:

1) I will be moving many, many miles westward and living there for 4 to 7 years.

2) I will face the even scarier situation of either a) going back to the drawing board with my theological career in order plan out how to improve my stock as a Ph.D. hopeful or b) seriously considering my options for an alternative career.

I could say more right now but I feel I should allow more time for the whole situation to sink in.

Damn Those 6th Graders!

2007-03-17T09:48:00.000-05:00

It finally happened...

I became so angry with a group of kids that my so-often-repressed Irish temper finally got the better of me (one day before Saint Patty's Day, interestingly enough) and I cursed at my students. It was only one word, and it was merely PG-level profanity, but it was profanity none the less and that violates even the teacher's behavior code.

In retrospect, my great anger began to well up before I'd even started interacting with the students. I had signed up to be a K6 Bitch at Garden City Elementary. Now a lesson I've learned the hard way is that "Roaming Teacher" is a wildcard assignment. A lot of the time, the schools that post this job don't plan on having the sub roam one bit.

They use the job category as a troubleshooting catch-all, which is the reason that the office can place you in an awful room no one wants to be in or drop you in the midst of a classroom where the teacher has just left unexpectedly. When one of these two situations has fallen to me as a roaming sub, only once has it turned out well for me...which makes my overall percentage of enjoyable days that take shape in this manner a meager 20% or less. As I've already made clear, yesterday did not fall into the 20%.

About 2 minutes before students are allowed to begin filtering into the classroom, I was told that a 6th grade class was still without a substitute and that they would need me to fill in there until someone else accepted the listing the secretary had placed on SubFinder. I made it perfectly clear that I despise teaching 6th graders and would prefer to do just about any other task that might need me for than go where they had directed me. But, as a true bitch often must, I had to take a big, fat one up the pooper from the big dogs in administration and do that which I was exceedingly loathe to do.

This 6th grade room was every bit as bad as I had feared. No fights, very little open disrespect towards the teacher, but nearly everything else a class can do wrong went wrong. And the disobedience was incessant. No matter how many incentives or punishments were promised to these shits, their collective behavior never altered.

At the asst. principal's suggestion, I had made a "contract" with the class and posted the details on the chalkboard for the entire school day. If they did three things for me, I would do three things for them. I asked that they not talk out (in the classroom or the hallways), disrespect me or other students, or fail to follow instructions the first time. In return, I would let them have snack time, I would not yell at them, and I would help them work through difficult problems instead of telling them to figure them out on their own. They mostly adhered to my second item in the contract, but the first and third were thoroughly ignored. Most irritating to me was the fact they walked through the hallways like they owned the damn place and didn't have to remain quiet or form a straight line.

When this infraction was performed for the 6th or 7th time that day...that was the straw that finally broke this albino camel's back. Coming back from lunch (a time during which the class had gotten in trouble with the adults on duty), they talked and laughed and meandered through the halls and about a third of the class went to the restroom without asking for permission. The raucous remnant that actually followed me into the classroom were the unlucky souls who got a violent earful. It went something like this:

"That's ENOUGH!!! It's obvious our contract doesn't mean jack crap to you guys, so now it doesn't mean crap to me either. [Some kids are still talking to one another while I'm saying this so now I'm really getting shined on.] SIT DOWN AND SHUT THE HELL UP!!!"

Needless to say, their ears perked up at this moment and they actually shut up...for about 5 seconds.

"Were you talking to me or to the whole class?" asked a particularly obnoxious dunce named Sy.

"What do you think, Sy?" I responded indignantly. "Did I look you straight in the eyes when I said to shut up?" [All the kids who had been silent start laughing again.]
"No."
"Then I must have been talking to the whole class."

At that moment, I realized I had sworn and instantly felt upset with myself for letting a group of 13 year-old assholes get to me so much. "I apologize for swearing at you," I told them. "But you guys should never have made me angry to the point I would use language like that."

"It's OK," Sy chirped in. "It's not like we haven't heard that kind of talk before."

"All of you go to the bathroom. Go!"

I think other adults had heard my initial yell, because one teacher's aide stopped these kids in the hall while they were headed to the restroom. She told them that anyone who was sent out of the room for the rest of the day would have Saturday School the next morning. At this time, another teacher's aide, Ms. Bowen, entered the classroom to find me in a self-imposed time out.

Facing the corner behind the teacher's desk with my hands on the back of my head, I was fuming. The pressure my anger and disgust with this class, with the office, with myself for losing my cool, with the whole damn situation, was so great that tears began running out of my eyes. It wasn't because my feelings were hurt or I was just that embarrassed. Such tears have always been my body's way of letting some of that angry pressure out when I can't otherwise release it.

Ms. Bowen offered to take over the class if I wanted to take a short break. I sure as hell did. I went to the only place in the school where a boy of 25 can have some real privacy: the bathroom. Shutting myself in the corner stall, I pulled some tissue paper off the roll, clenched it in both of my fists, and pushed it against my eye sockets like I was trying to push my hands through the back of my skull. I was seething not sobbing. All I could think about for nearly 5 minutes was marching back into that class and breaking some pubescent asses, then marching downstairs to the administrative offices and breaking an adult ass or two.

When my five minutes of fuming were at there end, I walked around the floor I was on for another five minutes, waiting for the urge to hit someone to subside. Thankfully, it did and I went back into the battle zone. Ms. Bowen was doing an excellent job leading the students through a science lesson, and I had the help of her and other aides for the remaining 90 minutes of the school day. Ten more minutes of the shit I was putting up with yesterday and you would have heard a report on the evening news that went something like...

Our top story this evening involves a shocking and violent incident at a Westside school this afternoon. Three students from Garden City Elementary are dead and seven more are in critical condition. Eye witnesses stated to police that their substitute teacher- Wayne Township employee David Scott -went into an unprovoked rage, first screaming profane language at the class and then physically assaulting many of the children.

Several surviving students claimed to have been paralyzed by horror when they saw their classmates being beaten with their own chairs. The most horrifying part of this crime, police told reporters, came when Scott killed 13 year-old Sydney Owens with a desk. The most brutal of the three murders, Scott cracked Owens' sternum with the desk, spread his ribcage open, and proceeded to beat the boy's internal organs into, what the Marion County coroner's office has already described as, "a gelatinous paste."

Scott, age 25, is presently in the custody of Marion County Police and is facing charges of murder, assault and battery, as well as the newly instituted charge of gratuitous bludgeoning. Surprisingly, Scott has no previous criminal history. We'll have more on this tragic story later in our news cast. Brad.

Thank you, Cindy. Our other top story this evening:

"Bear Fucking" -a potentially fatal hobby for those who practice it. But do gaming commissions have the authority to regulate this dangerous pastime.

Peculiar Dreams

2007-03-14T05:59:00.000-05:00

I am presently house sitting for a friend of mine while his family goes on a cruise down Florida way. I've enjoyed my time here overall...they have a flat screen HD TV with digital cable, tasty leftover ribs for me to munch on, as well as a comfortable king-size bed for me to sleep in. One of the only downsides to the whole experience is that I've still not adjusted to the house well enough to sleep soundly in that amply sized bed. Last night I was having especially bizarre dreams. Here are some snippets I can remember, in the order I think I dreamed them:

1) At a pub in Atlanta, Mark Rogers-Berry tells a bartender I offered to pay his tab and then leaves before I can tell the woman he's lying. I only have a twenty dollar bill in my wallet and I just know it's not going to be enough to pay for my beer as well as all MRB's drinks. I'm afraid of what the bartender is going to make me do to square away this money situation.

2) I move a dresser, a bookcase, some of my dumbells, and various other items into one of the rooms in Dana, Beth, and John's apartment (although it didn't actually look too much like the real Apartment K). Based loosely on a conversation I actually did have with those ladies while I was in Atlanta two weeks ago, I assume in my dream that because Dana moves out of her room, I'm next in line to occupy it. After depositing all my stuff in the room, my Atlanta friends as a group are upset with me because that room had actually been promised to the loveable Rohrers. Before I can figure out how to resolve this situation, Dana tells me she's moving back in and now I have to find a place to take the things I just moved in to her "old" space. Even though I have nowhere else to go, I am strangely optimistic that I can remove my possessions from the apartment quickly and easily.

3) Many members from my mom's side of the family are going on vacation together. Whatever long trip we are about to embark on, we've decided that taking Greyhound is the ideal means of travel. The driver of our bus, however is a real jerk. He's saying jerky things over the speaker system from the moment the bus starts rolling. In my distaste for him, I chuck my cell phone at his head as hard as I can. A direct hit!

Expectedly, he's indignant about the whole matter, immediately stops the bus, and demands to know who threw the phone. I don't hessitate to confess. He then steps into the aisle of the bus and tells me, "You're outta here!" (Interestingly, the aisle is on the passenger side of the seats rather than the middle.)

Realizing that I was now going to miss my family's vacation AND I had just forfeited my deposit, I angrily start hitting the driver as hard as I can in the face and chest. I rip off his white shirt and wrap his black tie in my left hand so he is less able to escape my punches. I even grab another person's cell and start hitting him with the antenna end. Bafflingly, none of my blows are really hurting him. He's not enjoying himself but he's not getting injured either. I really don't remember how my mind transitioned out of this part of the dream.

In the final (psycho)analysis, it seems that my subconsious mind is a microcosm of the madness.

I Received a Letter Today

2007-03-08T15:50:00.000-06:00

It went something like this:

Dear David, [So given the greeting alone you know it's either an official document or a note from my Grandma.]

I am delighted to inform you that you have been accepted for admission to the Theology, Philosophy and Cultural Theory concentration of the Joint Ph.D. Program in Religious and Theological Studies offered by the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology. Congratulations on this achievement! You may begin your studies in the Fall 2007 quarter.
...
We are now beginning to make our financial aid decisions for next year. My goal is to inform you and the other newly admitted applicants of our financial aid offers by no later than March 31, 2007.

We hope that you will be able to accept this invitation to admission...We need to receive your final response to our invitation by April 30, 2007. I look forward to hearing from you and hope to welcome you into the Joint Ph.D. Program this Fall.

Frank Seeburger
Director

One down, one to go. I hope the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University will send me a very similar letter in the near future. I would like to throw a very sincere "Thank you, Jesus!" heaven-ward. Someone traditionally considered to be the brother of Jesus once wrote that every good and perfect gift comes down to us from on high. Seeing as I regard this invitation as an exceedingly good blessing, I want to acknowledge its ultimate source as the God with whom I share an intimiate, if not always amicable, relationship.

And, Nick, if you have any wooden shoes left in your arsenal, it looks like you'll have to lob them at the department of financial aid. Apparently the Denver admissions machine is "sabot proof."

Gulliver's Potty

2007-03-07T08:25:00.000-06:00

After only one and half days back at work, I already have an entertaining, new tale to share.

On Monday, I picked up a half-day assignment working with Mrs. Ifert's kindergarten class. For the first time in my work as a substitute teacher, I worked a half-day that started in the morning and ended in the middle of the school day. Among other things, this meant that I was in charge when it the time came to take the wee beasties to lunch in the middle of the day.

This was a good group of kids, and they caused me no special problems. When working with 5 and 6 year olds, it's to be expected that at least half the kids suffer from the inability to remain in their seats for more than 60 seconds and that at least four students will be as hyperactive as a hummingbird on amphetamines. And this group certainly sported such individuals. But there were no mean-spirited or abnormally recalcitrant rugrats among them and that state of affairs is a wonderful environment in which to be. Those are the times when you can let your guard down a bit and actually have fun being around a baker's dozen of tiny humans.

(For example, during "carpet time" I was supposed to emphasize the importance of vowels and point out that every word has them. To demonstrate the point, I re-read the morning message their teacher had written for them without any of the vowel sounds. The children enjoyed witnessing an adult speak gibberish for 60 seconds.)

Yet, no matter how well-behaved a kindergarten class may be, the teacher must throw mind-building activities at them with a machine gun-like speed of succession. Otherwise even the most eager student could easily be lured away from their school work by any number of colorful objects present in the room. That means the teacher has little time to attend to matters of self-care; namely, going to the bathroom.

Like most kindergarten classes, this one always took its lunch break at 10:30 in the AM. One thing I love about the school I was working at that day, Garden City Elementary, is that 4 of the 6 kindergarten classes are located right next to the cafeteria. As a double bonus, these classrooms also have a bathroom built in so that you don't have to deal with the potential chaos of taking 12-15 little ones to the potty all at once.

I was especially grateful for these two architectural feature's of Mrs. Ifert's room when 10:25 rolled around. Once my body realized I was about to be free of my instructional responsibilities for thirty minutes, it also realized I had to piss like a Hungarian race horse with a swollen prostate. So after I made the brief jaunt back from the cafeteria, I hastily entered the K5 watercloset to find some relief.

Now this isn't the first time I've been in such a bathroom. In my previous experience, these bathrooms have the same kind of toilet you would find in any other restroom, and a small step stool is placed in front of it to assist the kiddos in their efforts to use an adult-sized commode. Not in this restroom, my friends! This bathroom boasted the tiniest, fully functional toilet I've ever seen in my life. It was practically Lilliputian in its dimensions.

A couple of days later, some quick internet research would inform me that the seat for this toilet is only 10" in length. And like many public toilets, it is moored in one corner of the room with handrails anchored beside and behind it. This situation would create such a tight fit for any adult looking to sit on it that the adult would certainly have to turn their body sideways. Fortunately, I am a man and did not need to go #2, so sitting was not a concern for me.

What did become a concern for me as I began the process of going #1 is that a smaller toilet also has a smaller bowl. That in turn means that a kindergarten crapper is designed to hold a much smaller volume of liquid than your conventional john. To cut to the heart of the matter, my business filled the bowl up to the bottom edge of the rim. If I had been drinking that morning, I probably could have overflowed the darn thing. (There's a pleasant thought, eh?) Thanfully, for the sake of my job and the children, I had not been drinking.

The problem of an embarassing overflow in a children's restroom had been averted. But a different problem immediately presented itself. This toilet did not have a handle. It flushed with the help of one of those new fangled laser systems. I, however, am so much taller than your average kindergartener that the laser passed between my legs. Thus when I stepped away from the commode, the toilet did not flush because my presence before it had never been detected.

Panicing ever so slightly at the thought of my students returning to find their toilet nearly brimming with grown-up pee, I began furiously waving my right hand in front of the laser, hoping to trigger a flush. No dice. After repeating this fruitless exercise for 5-10 seconds, a solution occured to me. Sure enough, after holding my hand still in front of the laser for a little while and then removing it, I heard the welcome "whoosh" of the toilet's contents exiting speedily down the drain. With no urine remaining in the bowl (or having escaped to the floor), my minute and a half of concern proved to be unwarranted. I was able to wash my hands and take my own lunch break without giving any further thought to, what I have since come to refer to as, "Gulliver's potty."

The Natural

2007-03-04T14:23:00.000-06:00

Last night I experienced one of the most thrilling moments in all my years of watching professional sports. Almost a month after seeing my Colts win Super Bowl XLI, I got to see Randy Couture, my favorite MMA fighter of all time, win the UFC Heavyweight title for a record-setting 3rd time at UFC 68.

I won't devote an ocean of space to discussing the magnitude of Randy's championship victory (because I know that only a handful of folks who read this blog are interested in this subject matter), but I do want to explain why I found his win so exhilirating.

During the 10 years I've been watching the sport of Mixed Martial Arts, Randy Couture has emerged as my most beloved fighter. And I can sum up in one concise sentence why I and thousands of other fight fans are so amazed with this man: He has continually defied expectations and natural limitations to produce dominant performances at the highest level of competition.

Randy first established himself as a high caliber athlete in the sport of Greco-Roman wrestling. In fact, Randy was already in his mid-30s when he fought in his first MMA bout back in UFC 13. But the man known in the wrestling world as "The Natural" lived up to his moniker in the world of MMA as well. A person who lives to compete against the very best, Randy consistently signed on to fight the most talented and dangerous opponents the UFC could provide him.

In just his fourth fight, Couture won his first heavyweight belt. In his late 30s, he won it a second time. But by the time Randy was almost 40, the challengers to his title had become so much larger than him (often outweighing him by 20 or 30 pounds) that Randy failed to retain/regain his championship against such bigger, comparably skilled adversaries. By the summer of 2003, back-to-back championship losses led even the most sympathetic of fans to suspect Randy's best days were behind him. After all, it's a simple truth that middle-aged men rarely ever achieve great success in combat sports.

Tired of constantly being at a weight disadvantage but not ready to call it quits either, Randy dropped down to the 205-lb Light Heavyweight division. He immediately silenced all the doubters and naysayers by defeating then #1 contender Chuck Liddell and long-time champion Tito Ortiz in consecutive fights to become the first man to hold a belt in two different weight classes. And not only did he defeat these two elite fighters, but he did so in dominating fashion and by beating each man at his own game.

Couture's 2 year run at Light Heavyweight garned him two belts (three if you count the interim title he won by beating Liddell) and solidified him as one of the greatest fighters in the short history of MMA. However, Liddell would return to knock out Couture in their second and third fights. The first loss to Chuck cost Randy his belt; the second led him to announce his retirement in February of 2006.

Nearly a year later, Randy Couture and the UFC announced that The Natural was already set to return to action. And he would be stepping back into the title picture immediately. Yet Randy's return bout would not be in the 205-division he'd most recently competed in but rather the heavyweight division. He would challenge the two-time heavyweight champion Tim Sylvia, a 6'8," 265-lb behemoth known for his potent striking ability. On paper this match-up looked horrible for Randy. Not only was the legend now 43, but he would be giving up 50 or more pounds to the current champ AND his matches with Liddell revealed that a potent striker with a long reach is a poor style match up for Randy. Even with his extensive history of doing the seemingly impossible, it seemed to even the most loyal of Couture supporters (like myself) that Randy was most likely on his way toward receiving a brutal beatdown.

Against all odds, as the cliche goes, Randy Couture once again thrived in the role of heavy underdog and blew the minds of the UFC faithful for the umpteenth time. He absolutely dominated the much larger champion last night. So dominant was his performance that Randy won all five rounds on all three judges scorecards. The fact that Randy is one of the most likeable guys and honorable sportsmen ever to put on a pair of 4-ounce gloves makes his ongoing defiance of time and probability that much sweeter for his supporters. As you should all know by know, I have tremendous love and appreciation for Matt Hughes as a fighter, but my appreciation for Randy goes even deeper than what I have for Matt.

Congratulations to Randy "The Natural" Couture! The only competitor in the history of MMA to win a title 5 times.

My Vacation (Extended Cut)

2007-03-01T08:10:00.000-06:00

Greetings Friends!

As many of you know, I have been vacationing in Atlanta for the last week. My original plan was to leave Indianapolis on Thursday, February 22nd (which I did), and return no later than today, March 1st. That plan was coming together excellently until 6:15am when a thunderclap -one that would almost certainly frighten the Most High- woke me from my slumber. This encouraged me to access Yahoo! Weather and look at the forecasts for all four states my journey home would take me through.

The concise summary of my findings is that Mother Nature will be coercing Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana to grab their collective ankles and take it without tenderness for the next 18 hours or so. Tomorrow's weather, on the other hand, is looking to be amicable to travelers. I called Perry at work to seek his opinion on the matter, and he informed me that both he and Susan would feel a lot better if I opted not to drive 550 miles in serious thunderstorms. Thus my stay in Atlanta will be extended one more day, and I will return to Naptown on Friday.

Now remaining in Atlanta another 24 hours is by no means a negative turn of events. For the last week I've been in the company of wonderful friends I had not seen in 8 months or more, enjoying the cuisine of restaurants exclusive to the Atlanta area, sitting in on courses I completed during my time at Candler, and sleeping on one of the most comfortable of couches.

Furthermore, I've spent at least a couple of hours in the presence of nearly every person I had hoped to see while I was in Tha Dirty South and revisited all my old haunts (excluding the two apartments I used to live in, which are now occupied by strangers). I once more experienced the power of potent libations that I am almost never at liberty to consume during the work week. (I am all about the White Russian, my friends. A superb choice, Dude.) All in all, I've met all the personal objectives I set for this trip...save one, and that goal is perpetual anyway.

So, as a closing word to those reading this, I say to my Atlanta friends that I am here another day should you want a little (more) quality time with Dave Scott. And to my Indianapolis friends I say that I will be home soon. I shall not miss UFC 68. :)

My Lenten Commitment 2007

2007-02-21T18:47:00.000-06:00

For the fourth consecutive year, I am transcending my low church roots and adopting the long-standing Christian tradition of giving some thing(s) up for Lent. Over the first three years, the scope of my self-denial progressively expanded from reasonable sacrifice to borderline asceticism. Whereas 2004 saw me eschew chocolate and beer, 2006 was the year I crossed the street whenever I saw any desserts, liquor, or fast food.

This time around I'm tapering the self-denial back a couple notches. First off, instead of giving up "all deserts" I'm simply giving up the ones I love the very most:

chocolate
ice cream
cookies

Second, I plan to fully embrace alcoholic beverages this Lenten season. I came to this decision when I realized that today is Ash Wednesday (i.e. the first day of the Church's long, sullen march toward Easter) and tomorrow is the day I make my first trip to Atlanta in nearly 8 months. The chances of me reuniting with Candler friends like Jay, John, Beth, and Dana and not drinking are about as slim as the chances of me being recruited by a lingerie football team to be their tackling dummy. Thus I've decided not to make Jesus cry by adopting a commitment I'm certain to break.

Third, last year I resolved to deny myself fast food during Lent. Unfortunately, I did not define "fast food" prior to Ash Wednesday so I spent nearly all of that holy season debating with myself and others about what restaurants I could patronize with a clear conscience. This year I'm eliminating hermeneutical conundrums by simply naming specific restaurant chains I will not eat at until Jesus once again rises from his tomb. Those establishments are:

McDonald's
Wendy's
Arby's
Burger King
Hardee's
Rally's
Taco Bell
Pizza Hut
Domino's
Noble Roman's
Donato's
Pizza King
Steak 'n' Shake
White Castle
King Gyros
Denny's
KFC

This list represents places in Central Indiana or Atlanta that I am likely to buy from if given the option. These places serve cheap, often-less-than-nutritious food that I am prone to eat too often and in excessive quantity. Those who are eager to keep me accountable for this resolution should therefore chastise me only if they discover I've patronized one of the above restaurants. So if you see me eating a Chipotle burrito or Mellow Mushroom pizza, don't criticize me because you'll lack the proper grounds.

Here's to a successful season of Lenten commitment. It won't be easy, but it'll be a heckuva lot easier than being betrayed by your friends and suffering an agonizing execution.

The Sisyphean Assignment of Shoveling Incessant Snow

2007-02-14T00:25:00.000-06:00

"Know your role and shut your mouth." This is the lesson that the figure of Sisyphus personifies within Greek mythology. The proud king/founder of Corinth, Sisyphus achieved his high earthly status through his great skills of craftiness and trickery. So great was his hubris that this mortal monarch began to think of himself as possessing stature and nobility which approached divinity. Behaving as though he were a peer to the gods, Sisyphus overstepped his bounds as a human being when he (among other things) volunteered information on Zeus' sexual escapades to another deity.

His punishment? Zeus condemned Sisyphus to spend eternity in the Underworld performing a most ungratifying sort of labor. Sisyphus had to roll a massive rock to the top of a steep hill. But every time he would near the apex, the rock would escape his grasp and return to the base. Thus Sisyphus would forever be humbled by this difficult and fruitless task.

I've recently received a tiny taste of the Sisyphean experience. As many of you already know, Indiana has been receiving a large amount of winter precipitation during the last 24 hours. Now the total accumulation of snow and sleet is nowhere near what folks in Denver and Buffalo have been dealing with recently, but it has been enough to close down the schools and leave me more or less trapped in my house.

Now when weather like this sets in around the homestead, the task usually falls to Dave Scott to shovel all this accumulated precipitation off of the driveway. I don't mind the chore really. After all, I am the strongest, able-bodied person in our immediate family. And, at the present time, performing this service is a good way for me to demonstrate my gratitude to my aunt and uncle for letting me live here rent free for the past 8 months. It's also the closest thing to cardiovascular exercise my big ass is willing to engage in these days.

Of course, weather forecasts are always changing and reports vary from one meteorologist to another. But the consensus as I understand it is that Indianapolis will have received 11 or more inches of materials from the sky by the time this winter storm has finished bombarding our collective ass. The kicker is that the precipitation is accumulating relatively slowly over a 36-48 hour period.

The first major wave of snow hit last night while most folks were asleep. Not at all keen on the idea of shoveling snow that's sleet-encrusted and piled a foot high, I decided to head outside at 9am and clear away the 4"-5" that was already there this morning. I'm proud to say that I was able to shovel the entire driveway (as well as the sidewalk that leads to our front door) in a little over an hour. That pride was quickly squashed. By 4pm, nearly all the space I cleared out was filled back in with sleet and snow. Tomorrow morning I will have to head out again and relocate even more material than I tossed around the first time.

During several brief moments of self-pity, I amused myself with the thought that the God of Abraham was playing the role of Zeus to my Sisyphus. Instead of rolling a bolder to a hilltop, my incompletable task is to clear off a drive way that will be continuously rained, snowed, and sleeted upon. In my book, either punishment is far better than the one given to Prometheus for sharing fire with humanity: being chained to a rock and having his liver eaten out by birds every day.

I had a foretaste of this experience last week when 4" of powdery snow greeted me at 3pm when I returned home from work. After I cleared off the last corner of the driveway, I turned around to see that another inch-and-a-half had built up where I had just shoveled less than 60 minutes earlier. Therefore, I had to shovel my entire drive way two consecutive times before I could consider my task completed.

Here's hoping tomorrow's stage of my ongoing shoveling duties isn't too exhausting. In the final analysis, I'm not complaining about my Sisyphean challenge. Just reporting the details.

The Cold and the Son: Two Brief Conversations

2007-02-08T19:58:00.000-06:00

Today I subbed at Westlake Elementary. The woman I filled in for is essentially in charge of getting students off the buses in the morning and getting them on the buses in the afternoon. That means I was technically in charge of this ominous task. (I say "technically" because the assistant principal was present both times, and he was clearly the one actually in charge.)

If any of my fellow Hoosiers were outside this morning, then you boys and girls know it was ridiculously cold. It was the kind of weather my venerable grandfather Richard Scott would describe as "colder than a witch's tittie." Now I personally have never felt a witch's breast, but if it is even half as face-numbingly cold as the climate I experienced at 7:45am, then I shant be touching such a breast any time soon.

Even still, in spite of both the bitter morning chill and all common sense, there were several students getting off the buses with no hat on, with their coat wide open, or even with their coat stored uselessly under their arm. Mostly in vain, I petitioned several students to rectify their situations and thereby spare themselves some unnecessary discomfort.

I recognized one of the students with an open coat and without a hat as a kindergartener named Brian. Now I'm not inclinded to say a kidneygardner lacks common sense (seeing as this age group is still jumping through the requisite hoops of enculturation), but I will say that this one seems to lack the survival instinct that God gave goats. Brian is an especially friendly Hispanic lad who clocks in at the tender age of six. But, for all his positive qualities, Brian's powers of concentration are sorely lacking.

Mr. Scott: Good morning, Brian. It's freezing cold out here, friend. Why don't you put your hat on?

Brian: Hellllloooooo!
Mr. Scott: Hi, Brian. Put your hat on, okay?

Brian: Hey! [short pause] I have a dog. Heeeeee's big and he runs fast!
Mr. Scott: No kidding? Where's your hat, buddy? [At this point, Mr. Scott notices that Brian isn't wearing a coat but a lined jacket on top of a hooded fleece.]

Brian: My dog has big eyes. [Mr. Scott puts Brian's hood on for him as the boy continues to speak.] And he's furry. And he has hard teeth. [Brian uses his index fingers to mimic his dog's upper canines.] And he runs fast!

Mr. Scott: He runs fast, huh?
Brian: Yah.
Mr. Scott: Cool. Now go to your class Brian.

Brian enters the school building through the east entrance, thrilled that an adult has acknowledged his existence.

The second conversation I would like to document took place during lunch. The conversants were Mrs. Patterson, a white woman in her late 40's, and Ms. Glenn, a black woman in her mid 30's.

Mrs. Patterson: Ms. Glenn, could you help me with this can? I can't seem to get this lid off. [Ms. Glenn immediately pops the lid off on her first attempt.] How did you do that so fast?

Ms. Glenn: I just pulled where it said, "Pull Back Here."
Mrs. Patterson: Really? Jesus Christ! I mean, "Cheese and Rice." That's what I said, "Cheese and rice."

Ms. Glenn: That's not what you said. You called on the Lord's Name. I heard ya.

I throughly enjoyed witnessing that exchange.

"You called on the Lord's Name." That was classic black woman.

Booyah!

2007-02-05T16:53:00.000-06:00

The Indianapolis Colts are World Champions!!!

Peyton Manning can't win the Big One. A Tony Dungy team will never make it to the Super Bowl. The Colts are a finesse team...a soft team...a dome team that can't handle the elements. This is the kind of media-hype bull crap that Colts fans have been listening to for years now.

[Earmuffs, children.]

Fuck all that shit! The Colts just defeated the Chicago Bears 29-17 on the NFL's grandest stage, and Peyton Manning is your Super Bowl XLI Most Valuable Player.

I have to admit it. When the Colts defense gave up 375 yards rushing to the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 14 of the regular season, I nearly lost all hope that the Colts could win an NFL championship. When a loss to the Houston Texans in Week 16 cost us a first round bye, my foremost wish became that we would simply not embarrass ourselves in the playoffs...that we would do something respectable like making it to at least the divisional round before LaDanian Tomlinson or Corey Dillon gouged us to death on a national stage.

But after the Indianapolis Colts defeated the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore, I started to believe again. I was optimistic, even though still gut-wrenchingly nervous, going into the AFC title game against the New England Patriots. When the Colts came back from 18 points down to Brady & Co. to secure their bid for the Big One, I began to feel something like confidence in the fact that Indianapolis was about to win a world championship.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't as elated by yesterday's Super Bowl victory as I was with the triumph over the Pats. Vanquishing our bitter rival in the most dramatic of fashions when it mattered most gave me the highest high I've ever experienced as a sports fan. To borrow a few words from my friend and fellow Colts enthusiast Aaron Homoya: After we won the AFC Conference Championship, I pretty much felt we were entitled to a Super Bowl championship as well.

Watching the Colts win the Super Bowl was a dynamic and ultimately enjoyable experience. I yelled, sighed, complained, screamed, cheered, and even threatend to shove sharp sticks into a sensitive area of Bears players' bodies. But, at the end of the game, I didn't feel nearly as ecstatic as I did after the AFC title game.

What I felt most was an overwhelming sense of relief. The pressure that all those aforementioned naysayings create weighs heavily on the fans as well as the players. The mighty pessimist I am could not shake the fear that the Colts might exorcise all their demons this postseason save the most important one: winning a league championship. Devon Hestor's opening kickoff return did nothing to alleviate that fear. Neither did Muhsin Muhammad's touchdown reception in the 1st quarter. But when my home town boys turned things around and outscored Da Bears 23-3 the rest of the way, they cast out that final demon with extreme prejudice.

As the final second ticked off the game clock, I yelled in adulation. Then I immediately collapsed back into my seat and let the sweet, sweet feeling of total, unadulterated relief wash over me. "Even if we go 4-12 every season from here on out, they can't take this one away from us," I proclaimed to those around me. I would now add that even if Peyton Manning never reaches another Super Bowl, no sane or credible human being can deny that he won this Super Bowl. He has now undeniably surpassed greats such as Dan Marino and Jim Kelly. He is now at least as stellar a quarterback as Steve Young or Brett Favre. All of you in the media who have been riding Peyton so very hard these past 9-13 years may now begin apologizing profusely.

In closing, I would like to make sure that I am being crystal clear on something: It is my quarterback, my coach, and my team who are the 2006 Champions of the National Football League. And just who does that team happen to be?

The Colts, bitches. The Colts.

Dollars and Scents

2007-01-25T14:10:00.000-06:00

Until two weeks ago, I often bore the pleasant smell of Vurt- the brand of men's cologne sold at Pacific Sun. Sadly, the bottle I received for Christmas 2005 has finally run dry. I am now without a fragrance to enhance my aesthetic appeal, and I am debating whether I should buy a new bottle of Vurt or dare to take on a new scent.

I am seeking input on this matter. I think the perfect cologne for me would be a) affordable, b) manly enough to never be confused with perfume and, c) loved by most lady folk between the ages of 19 and 35. I would appreciate any and all help I can get.

WOW!!!

2007-01-22T17:59:00.000-06:00

Last night I had the greatest, most dramatic sports experience of my entire existence. And that's no exaggeration.

Close to halftime of the Colts-Patriots game, I felt about as sick as I ever have watching a game. Indianapolis was down 21-3 to its top rival and seemed to be on the verge of losing a playoff showdown to New England for the third time in 4 years. I was already promising those around me that I wouldn't watch the Super Bowl if the Colts failed to bounce back because I couldn't stand watching the Patriots win another NFL championship. But a phone conversation at halftime with Aaron Homoya convinced me that there was still grounds for hope, if not optimism.

What I witnessed in the second half was the single greatest comeback in NFL conference championship history. Previously, 7 points was the largest halftime deficit any team had been able to overcome in the history of such a contest. The Colts managed to overcome a margin double that much en route to sending Tom Brady and company back to Foxboro losers.

Joseph Addai's 3-yd TD run with 1:00 remaining in the 4th quarter

gave the victorious Colts their first and only lead of the game.

I'm going to take a week to let the joy of this accomplishment really sink in before I begin to worry about the upcoming I-65 Super Bowl, which will feature the Colts taking on the Chicago Bears. What a fantastic accomplishment for our guys. Here's to one more win!

The Time Approaches

2007-01-21T00:45:00.000-06:00

The next chapter in a storied rivalry is about to be written.

This time around, many important elements remain the same...

...Others are new to the playoff equation...

...And some have changed dramatically.

But for the first time in a long time,

the confrontation will go down on Indy's turf- literally.

I finally bought my colors yesterday, and I will be wearing them this evening. (Who would've thought that #88's jersey came in XXL?) I haven't had this much invested in a football game in nearly a decade. I will be agonizing over every down and hopefully rejoicing over the final score. GO COLTS!!!

Made It!

2007-01-18T05:33:00.000-06:00

A Pants Explosion

2007-01-17T15:04:00.000-06:00

I've a had a little bit of bad luck with pants this semester.

Since I've become a substitute teacher, I've had to purchase some business/casual pants to ensure that my wardrobe complies with the schools' dress code. I came into contact with the St. John's Bay brand of clothing and found its Worry Free Pant to be everything I was looking for: comfortable, fashionable without being trendy, wrinkle resistant, and things of this nature. What this particular line of clothing might lack, however, is durability.

I have had two pairs of these pants rip on me in the last three months. The first time it happened during a day in Developmental Kindergarten, so it was no big deal. The situation I had yesterday was a much bigger problem.

On Tuesday, I was in charge of a room of first graders. I was wearing my black SJB slacks and a rather flattering sweater. The ensemble was getting me through the day just fine until about 11:30am. When I half-bent/half leaned forward to pick something up off of the floor, I thought I heard something like the soft purr of stiching giving way. "Was that my pants?" I wondered. So when it seemed no students were looking, I slipped a quick hand along the back side and inseam of my trousers. No tactile evidence of rippage presented itself so I assumed I was fine.

And I may very well have been at the time. But later, right after the students returned from lunch, I sat down in the teacher's chair and lifted my right leg so that I might cross it over my left. At that moment I heard the unmistakable sound of fabric being pulled asunder.

"Shit!" I thought the word so emphatically I think a few kids in the first row actually heard it themselves. I knew this one was for real because I could already feel the a cool flow of air upon the back of my thigh where the tear had occured. "What am I gonna do about this? If a room full of six year-olds see my boxers through my ripped pants, I'm in for some Grade A embarrassment."

The good news was that the kids were due to have art class in about 15 minutes, during which I would have a half hour break. I instantly hatched a scheme. I would walk the kids to art...praying the entire time that my wardrobe malfunction wouldn't be detected...drop them off and then immediately dart into the nearby restroom where I could do some repairs on my pants. Thankfully, it is common for teachers of the youngest students to walk backwards in hallways so that they can continually monitor how the kids behave in line. I could do this while simply trusting that the rip was small enough that those passing us in the halls wouldn't catch a glimpse of it either.

Right before leaving the room for art class, I grabbed a mini-clip from the regular teacher's desk...you know, the ones that you squeeze open like a clothespin and have the metal arms that you flip down once the clip has clamped. Amazingly, I got the kids to the other classroom without being called out and made it into the nearby bathroom as I had planned. I shut myself inside a stall for added privacy.

To do the job I had to remove my pants, and to do that, I had to first remove my shoes. So there I was, standing in a public elementary school restroom in my socks and boxer shorts, attempting to clip shut the new window to my uber-pale thigh. The second I saw the damage, I knew my first suspicion had been correct: I had two disinct tears in my pants. The first ran right alongside the inseam of my pants. It was still small enough and deep enough in the crotchal region that I could have gone all day without anyone seeing that my pants were damaged. The more recent rip was worse. It went about a fifth of the way across the back of my right leg. It was probably about 3 inches in length, and looked like someone had literally crotch chopped me between the legs with an ax. I used my meager clip to close the opening as best I could but the clip popped off as soon as I slip my pants back on. A Plan B immediately came to me: "Staples! I need me some staples."

The teacher I was subbing for keeps her stapler right by the front door. I was able to make it back to home room without running into anyone else in the halls. I walked through the doorway, put the stapler in my left pocket, pulled the hem of my sweater as far down as I could to cover up this new, sizeable bulge on my hip, and walked across the hallway to the nearest boys room. Very soon, I was once again in my socks and boxers with my pants hanging half inside out from the coat hook of a stall door. It took about five staples to seal the more noticable opening. Then I added about 3 extras for added support. (I wasn't about to go through this whole ordeal a third time.)

My bootlegged solution got me through the end of the day just fine. I didn't bend at the knees or sit down for almost three hours, but I considered that a small price to pay to avoid embarrassment. It turns out, I made a wise choice. When I sat into the driver's seat of my car to go home that afternoon, every single staple tore out and the total length of the aformentioned second rip increased a little bit more.

As soon as I reached home, I got on JC Penney. com and bought myself three new pairs of pants. (I'd yet to replace the previous pair that exploded nearly 10 weeks prior.) I hope to have a mint condition set of black slacks arrive in the mail sometime in the next week or so.

Completion

2007-01-11T14:38:00.000-06:00

I've managed to complete a number of things this week. On Monday, I FedEx-ed the last of my application materials to Denver, which means I am completely finished with all that Ph.D. stuff. This fact comes as a huge relief to me personally because this task has been hanging over my head pretty much since I graduated from Candler in May.

At about 2am that same morning, I finished my reading of Stephen King's Cell. The book was much less freaky for it's last 100 pages than it was during the portion I previously discussed. All in all, it was a good read and a fine Christmas present.

I also finished watching 24 Season 2 yesterday. I finally saw an even numbered season! Whoohoo! Because I wasn't able to secure a sub position until today, I've had plenty of time to enjoy many consecutive hours of Jack Bauer power. That's really all I did on Tuesday. Now all I need is to watch Season 4 and I will have seen every episode that's been aired to date.

But with recent endings also come new beginnings...

I need to schedule campus visits for the two Ph.D. programs I've applied to. My hope is that I can coordinate my visit to Nashville, TN with a return trip to the ATL. I'll have to talk to the admissions office at Vandy as well as Dana and Beth to see if I can make this happen.

I need to keep reading. Nick and I have been discussing reading through two books together...books of the theological variety. And now that I've been able to put my academic/super-nerd persona aside for nearly 8 months now, I think I've finally rested long enough to reassume it. I think that next I'll bust into a volume on God and time I received for Christmas about 4 years ago.

And, finally, Season 6 of 24 starts Sunday. I'm so stoked, man! Although, it will be fairly strange to re-enter Jack's world after so many old school characters were killed off last time around. I'm also not too terribly hot on the idea of Wayne Palmer being president or the fact that Kumar has been added to the cast of the uber-drama. However, the additions of Farmer Hoggett as Jack's dad and Curly Bill as the VP should more than compensate for less promising changes.

2007 is starting out quite nicely for this guy.

How I've Kept Busy This Weekend

2007-01-07T19:16:00.000-06:00

The Colts won their first (of what I hope are several) game yesterday. The defense played out of their freakin' minds, holding an elite running back to only 35 yards and tackling Chiefs players with the thunderous power of the hammer of Thor. I also spent a large chunk of today viewing two other NFL Wild Card games. The Giants-Eagles game was highly entertaining, even if it was marked by sloppy play.

That's right! MK3, Baby! This is probably my favorite video game of all time. Like any other video game, I wasn't very good at it, but I loved to play it. Only the NBA Live franchise can rival Mortal Kombat as my favorite series.

Last Friday afternoon, I finally gave into an itch I had almost the entire break: Dig my Sega Genesis out of the closet and relive some of my childhood/early teenage years. I took my Genesis and a few games over to Nick Tranbarger's house, and the two of us stayed up past 1am playing Ultimate MK3 and NBA Tournament Edition. Then I spent a few hours at my own home on Saturday playing regular-ass Mortal Kombat 3 by myself. I still struggle to win a fight in the easiest tournament on the easiest difficulty setting, but I truly enjoy the Kombat experience nonetheless. (My suckiness has much to do with the fact that I still fail to properly utilize the block button.) The gaming action was so intense that my joystick thumb remains tender at this very moment.

I received the book Cell by Stephen King for Christmas this year. This book is the author's creative new approach to the zombie tale. Whereas George Romero's films envisioned an apocalyptic world where the reanimated dead attack and feed upon the living, King offers a tale where the mental software of most the world's population is instantaneously wiped clean by a mysterious Pulse that is mediated primarily through cellular telephones, allowing the victims' most base and savage impulses to run unchecked.

I'm now about 2/3 of the way in and business is really starting pick up. Because King is so widely read by such a pop-minded audience, his skill and understanding of his craft are often overlooked or at least undervalued. But the dude has a mad ability to draw you into his invented scenarios because he shoots these worlds chock full of versimilitude. King is one of the few writers I have read who can create a disturbing atmosphere that unsettles even my horror-saturated psyche. It's not the gore, the violence or the surprises that get me...it's the mood pure and simple. What I read rarely unsettles me, even when King is involved. But what I read in Cell at 1:30 this morning left me ever-so-spooked. What he describes circa page 200 would likely never happen (let's hope so anyway) but this particular incident got under my skin more than just a little bit. (King did the same thing to me this summer with the short story "Gramma," which is part of his Skeleton Crew collection.) I'm diving right back into Cell as soon as I publish this post.

I slept until NOON today! I honestly can't tell you the last time I did that. Fortunately, the bed was not on fire. Don't worry, God-fearers...I will be back in church next Sunday morning. If not, I'm sure your Lord bring the above fate down upon my unrepentant head.

And that covers the highlights of my weekends. Tomorrow I will finish up my U of Denver/Iliff SOT dossier and express mail those materials to the proper address.

Per My Profile

2007-01-04T17:45:00.000-06:00

In the "About Me" information displayed on my blog, I note that I hope to continue my academic career next fall. Ultimately, I want to be a professor in the field of religious studies. Though I am not likely to end up occuppying a spot in the pantheon of theological or philosophical uber-nerds (as I've depicted above), I do think I possess the potential to be a quality teacher and writer. To achieve such goals, however, I must first earn a Ph.D. in the field. And to do that, I first need to be accepted into a credible doctoral program. And to make that happen, I am presently finishing and submitting applications to two such programs.

One application, the one for the Graduate Department of Religion at Vanderbilt University, is due tomorrow. Every required element in my dossier has been submitted for the admission committee to review except one letter of recommendation (which is now out of my control whether arrives in time or not). A truly significant element is my "statement of purpose."

In a nutshell, this relatively brief statement lets the admissions committee know why I want to go to their graduate school and what I intend to do while I'm there should I be accepted. I have decided to post that statement here on the off chance that some folks might appreciate reading it. The statement I will submit with my other dossier will be essentially the same statement with references to the school and faculty being changed to fit the other program. I encourage you to leave comments and questions about what follows.

A Statement of Purpose for the Graduate Dept. of Religion at Vanderbilt University
by David N. Scott

If admitted to the Graduate Department of Religion’s doctoral program, my area of major concentration will be Theological Studies. Although my previous baccalaureate and graduate work in the field of religion has included courses in biblical studies, ethics, and comparative religion, my preferred area of study has always been systematic theology. The particular point of theological reflection in which I am most interested is the God-world relationship. I presently cannot identify what specific topic my dissertation would address, but I can guarantee that it will concern the metaphysical character of God’s relationship to the world. During the past three years, I have written four major papers on the subject, including the honors thesis I presented (and successfully defended) while at Anderson University.

Within the broad subject of the God-world relationship, I have three main issues I would continue to pursue during my graduate work at Vanderbilt: 1) What is the nature and character of God? 2) How does God direct and sustain the world? And, 3) What place of significance, if any, does humanity occupy within the God-world relationship? While investigating these three related quarries, I plan to dig deeper into modern discussions about panentheism, the viability of contemporary Trinitarian models, and the conceptual distinction between the finite and the infinite.

I should note that the resources I intend to draw upon in addressing these issues are predominantly Christian. Both my personal life and my formal education have always been shaped by the Christian tradition. Therefore, the voice with which I speak and write is distinctively Christian as well. If my voice is at all unique within the field of religious studies, it is because that voice is informed by an uncommon mixture of conversation partners. My most regular conversation partners include historical sources such as Augustine, Luther and Schleiermacher, conservative sources such as the evangelical Openness of God movement, and the liberal school of Process Theology. More recently, I have added several Continental philosophers to the discussion, particularly Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas.

Having reviewed the available information on the GDR’s faculty, I know of at least two professors who would be valuable conversation partners should I have the opportunity to work with them. It appears that Dr. Paul DeHart shares my interests in the doctrine of God and Trinitarian theology, while Dr. John Thatamanil also has a deep appreciation for the contributions Process Theology has made to the field. I am also encouraged by the presence of Dr. Ted Smith on the faculty. Having taken a class with him at Emory University, I know he would be a tremendous aide should I opt to devote a portion of my dissertation to the practical implications of my abstract reflections.

By pursing a Ph.D. in Theological Studies, I seek to accomplish two primary objectives. First and foremost is the personal objective to improve my abilities to clarify and engage the ultimate questions to which I am continuously drawn. Like many theologians, my chief interests find their source in the formative events of my personal history; namely, the tragedies and sorrows I have endured (e.g., losing my parents in a car accident at age 10). My theological pursuits are a means by which I seek to articulate for myself how God might still be working for the world’s greater good in the midst of such pain and loss. Thus my academic questions hold existential and therapeutic importance for me. It is my desire to address my personal concerns as thoroughly and competently as I am able that has driven me to apply to this and other religion programs.

My second objective for undertaking graduate work is vocational in nature - I want to teach theology at the college level. A career in the university would allow me to earn a living while pursuing my interests. It would also allow me to put the fruits of my self-serving labor towards the benefit of a larger community. I hold that the study of religion is best thought of as a conversation. Any fruitful conversation is going to need discussion leaders who are capable of defining the content and parameters of the discussion and helping their interlocutors express their respective views as clearly as they can. As a professor of religion, I would serve as such a leader. While I certainly plan on writing and having my work published, I am more interested in the classroom aspects of the vocation. What I have read in the GDR’s catalogue indicates that Vanderbilt’s faculty would be a great help to me as I made the transition from student to teacher.

In closing, I would like to address a few of the strengths and weaknesses of my academic preparation to date. I believe my greatest strengths as a scholar of religion are my skills of exposition and analysis. The course work I did at Anderson and Candler School of Theology required me to develop superior critical thinking skills in order that I might engage and understand difficult writings from a wide range of theological perspectives. The end result is that I now possess the desire to expand my knowledge, the patience to engage challenging material, and the integrity to interpret a source as faithfully as I am able. The development of my critical thinking skills has also prepared me to express complex ideas with clarity and precision and to write well-organized, coherent papers.

The greatest weakness of my previous preparation is that I have minimal proficiency in modern languages other than English. Although I did audit a course on German for Reading Comprehension at Emory University in the summer of 2005, I have no training at all in French. Thus I will have to do substantial work to meet the language requirements Vanderbilt has set for the doctoral program. Also, I have limited experience in teaching a college classroom. I have taken a position of leadership in several undergraduate and graduate courses, but I have never been a teacher’s assistant or colloquy leader. I plan to remedy this situation as soon as circumstances allow.

Despite these weaknesses, I know that I am an excellent student with the potential to be an excellent professor. I am confident that I have the constitution and the skill set to perform at the highest level at any graduate school. I hope those persons reviewing this statement will see the same promise in me that previous teachers and colleagues have encouraged me to see in myself.

Simple Presents for a Simple Man

2007-01-02T22:19:00.000-06:00

Post-Holiday Greetings, Everyone!

(I would have passed this warm, seasonal sentiment on to you before the holidays passed but I've had minimal internet access the past 10 or so days. Tonight is the first night I've been able to access the web at home since Christmas Eve.)

As stock as it may sound, I genuinely hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas/New Year's break. In my experience, that period between December 24th and January 1st tends to be a wonderful respite during which there is little more one must do but eat, fellowship, and experience the fun of exchanging gifts. I know many of you are now back at work. Those of us in the field of education still have a few more days before our return to the grind. That gives me another 5, responsibility-free days to enjoy all the cool stuff my thoughtful friends and family gave to me over the holidays.

Few times of the year remind me how simple of man I am than the Christmas season. The chief reminder comes when I must finalize my wishlist and discover that each year's list has the same character and composition as every other list I've composed during my adult life. Movies, music, and books...these are my perennial favorite kinds of gifts to receive. One category will receive greater emphasis than the others from year to year, but together these three forms of media continually comprise the backbone of a Dave Scott wishlist.

Always absent from the list is any form of clothing, technology, or other accessory that may be associated with an ostentatious personality. Any gift suggestions that concern my wardrobe are usually driven by practical rather than aesthetic concerns. The closest I've come to breaking this pattern was last year when I asked for a pair of boot-cut jeans. (Apparently tapered pant legs are now as uncool as pleats). Regarding technology, I don't play video games often or use my computer for too much more than checking e-mail and typing documents, so I never have expensive gadgets and do-dads on my wishlist. I couldn't care less about jewelry or products designed to "trick out" my car.

What I do have is a highly active interior life. In fact, pretty much all my hobbies but weightlifting involve processing images, sounds, and/or ideas. Even a cursory look at my Blogger profile will confirm my deep interest in film, music, and all manner of books. And even in pursuing these interests, I don't care too much about having state of the art technology with which to enjoy them. I have a 19" tube television, a six year-old DVD player, and still use a Walkman and adapter set to listen to CDs in my car. Of course, I would love to have a plasma screen TV and a state of the art car stereo system. But I don't want any such thing enough to spend the amount of money that owning them would require.

The moral of the story here is: a) I'm easy to shop for and, b) getting me a present I'd be thrilled to receive isn't likely to set you back more than $35 (probably $20 on average). I admit that the possessions I desire are not likely to make me more stylish or attractive. However, insofar as they enrich my inner life, your gifts will help me to continue being an entertaining and interesting person to have around. Just some food for thought.

In closing, let me list the simple presents that this simple man most recently received. I was most grateful to get each one. I offer a hearty 'thank you' to all who gave them.

Things on My List
-Curb Your Enthusiasm, Seasons 4 and 5 on DVD

-Heat, starring Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, and Val Kilmer
-UFC 57: Liddell vs. Couture 3 on DVD

-Cell, by Stephen King
-Sony Walkman CD Player
-2 Short-Sleeved Collared Shirts I can wear to work

Pleasant Surprises
-$100 cash (the combined total of what I received from all my biological grandparents)

-A framed portrait of Levi and Lily Tranbarger, complete with other wallet-sized pictures
-1 Long-Sleeved Collared Shirt (Apparently I made such a positive impression on my friend's mom's foster mom that she decided to buy me a Christmas present.)
-Devil's Advocate, starring Al Pacino and Keanu Reeves
-$80 in combined Best Buy gift cards
---I used this credit to purchase four DVDs (The Descent, City of God, Miami Vice, and Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby) and one CD (Sacrament by Lamb of God).

Tracing the Footnotes

2006-12-21T16:22:00.000-06:00

Preface

The phrase "tracing the footnotes," or something very much like it, was first introduced to me by Ted Smith. Ted is the director of the Theology and Practice program at Vanderbilt University. But before that he was one of the best professors I had during my time at the Candler School of Theology. (Ted received his doctorate from Emory not too long before I met him but his punk rock mentality precludes him from allowing any of his students to call him "Dr. Smith.) Tracing the footnotes means actually paying attention to all those books and articles that are cited within a piece of academic writing, and then actually committing some time and energy toward exploring those other materials yourself.

So, for example, if you were tracing the footnotes in a book written by R.C. Sproul, you'd likely be sticking your nose in the works of Martin Luther, W.G.T. Shedd, or James Montgomery Boice. And if you were tracing the footnotes of Jacques Derrida, this masochistic exercise would plunge you into a world occupied by Emmanuel Levinas, Martin Heidegger, and no doubt a goodly number of continental literary scholars whose names I couldn't even begin to tell you. Wherever a particular author's footnotes take you, her or his footnotes are a means by which s/he may publicly identify whose works s/he values most highly and counts as significant influences.

Where I Start Getting to the Point

Within the blogosphere, I have identified a phenomenon which parallels that of tracing footnotes. I call it "perusing the links." When a link is placed in the sidebar of a blog, it serves as a means by which the author of the blog may publicly identify the blogs that s/he enjoys reading and recommend them to the author's own readers. As someone who keeps a blog, I find that there are often brief periods where I spend more time authoring comments on other people's blogs than I do updating my own little corner of cyberspace. Now is such a period. So, if for some reason my readers are presently eager to read my most recent reflections, they will need to peruse my links to find them.

In the last week, I have been commenting on other people's blogs more often than usual. I have joined discussions about the best holiday movies, the use of creepy clowns in evangelism, and the relative "Christian-ness" of the U.S., both yesterday and today. I've made some especially substantial contributions on this last matter. My comments on "What's Wrong with the World?" have been the type of serious minded fair I have only rarely penned here in The Kingdom.

At the end of the day, this blog entry is really supposed to be a signpost with arrows pointing multiple directions. (The Jesus pictures are strictly for entertainment.) Go check out some other quality blogs!

...except for Mark's Blog because Mr. Schwartzkopf hasn't updated the damn thing in nine months.

The Week in Sub-Land

2006-12-17T19:45:00.000-06:00

Beth recently asked me if I had any more cute stories about the school kids I've worked with since the last time I shared. I thought others might be intrestest in the tales I just e-mailed to her so I'm posting them here. Whether or not they truly constitue "cute stories" will be up to you to decide. I haven't proof read what follows so, to Erin and anyone else annoyed by typos, I apologize in advance for those that may appear below.

-On Wednesday, I was with a class of 1st graders. In the afternoon, they were becoming particularly unruly and I had to start using my "mean voice." Apparently this voice is a fair bit more intense for 6 year-olds than it is for the 10 or 11 year-olds I work with most of the time. After one stern admonishment to be quiet while the teacher is giving a lesson, one girl named Daija raised here hand immediately afterwards. With great trepidation she said, "Mr. Scott...When you said that your voice was really loud." My response was, "If you children would be more quiet I wouldn't have to be so loud." For the rest of the day, every time I raised my voice, Daija would immediately cup her hands over her ears.

-On Friday, I was working with a class of 3rd graders. One boy named Carlos approached me at my desk and asked, "Mr. Scott, may I go get some aqua?" "Aqua, huh?" I replied. "Yeah, sometimes I speak Spanish. I'm half Mexican. Alan uses Spanish words sometimes too. He's also half Mexican."

In the same class, a kid named Noah (who apparently has a ridiculous amount of access to automatic weapons and other highly deadly firearms) asked, "Do you have any kids, Mr. Scott?" "Nope, no kids." "We are you at least married?" I showed him my ring-free left hand. "Nope, no wife either." His response made me laugh out loud: "Maaaaaan, you need to get married." Apparently a girl in the class named Jessica also thought I needed a female companion. She kept asking if she could walk next to me in the halls and when we went out to the buses she put her hand in the bend of my arm like we were prom dates or something. Before another teacher saw this and mistook me for a sexual predator I had to say, "Excuse me, Jessica but I need to be at the front of the line so I can make sure everyone's behaving."

-On Monday I was with a 5th grade class. Our last order of business for the day was to read an issue of Time Magazine for Kids as a group. One article was about Pope Benedict XVI praying in a mosque in Istanbul and meeting with several of the local Muslim leaders. As I attempted to explain the full historical significance of the head of Catholic Church a) praying in a mosque that b) is in Istanbul, I realized these kids couldn't have cared less about what I was telling them. But then a girl named Amberly raised her hand. "Finally! Student interest!" I thought. "Yes, Amberly. You have a question about this article?" "Yah, I do. What's a muslim?" What I wanted to say in the moment was, "Are you fucking kidding me?" Instead, I did my best to explain that it was another religion that many people in the world practice as they worship God and try to show love to other people.

Those are the past week's highlights.

In Receiving Mode

2006-12-14T15:09:00.000-06:00

I'm very low on output these days.

That's not to say I've been especially lazy or inactive in recent weeks. I just find myself more inclined toward reception, consumption, and digestion than I am creation, production, or construction.

My blog testifies to this fact. Other than a short run of daily activity at the end of last week, the kingdom has been relatively quiet in the past month. I simply haven't had as much to share. It's not that I've ceased thinking "share worthy" thoughts or lost passion for the usual hobbies and interests I tend to ramble on about. I simply haven't felt compelled to log on and post those things. I'm confident this is a spell and I'll move out of it sooner than later.

That all being said, I'm going to resume the model of sharing a few random thoughts to keep you at least a smidge up-to-date on what's been happening in my interior and exterior life.

1) What's Wrong with the World? This is the name of my buddy's new blog. Those of you who read the comments on my blog may have noticed the username "Indy Rider" before. This handle belongs to Mr. Nick Tranbarger, one of my dearest friends in the world. It appears that his blog will serve as a message board of sorts where Nick will regularly prompt us to approach the title question from various different directions. After I publish this post, I will add his blog to my links. So, please, check it out.

2) Ph.D. applications. I really need to start finishing these things up. I finally narrowed my list down to two candidates: the Graduate Departement of Religion at Vanderbilt University and a joint doctoral program offered by the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology. I spent a sizeable chunk of the weekend trying to decide on a third and final school to pursue, but couldn't decide on one I was genuinely interested in. I need to push myself out of receiving mode because I need to right a statement of purpose for these applications quite soon. I just find it highly intimidating to write a short essay about where I think I'm going in my education and, eventually, my career.

3) The UFC is adding some big time talent. If the reports are true, "Rampage" Jackson and Mirko "Cro Cop" are both going to be signed to the UFC roster very, very soon. That would be like the Colts signing Ray Lewis and Troy Polamalu at the same time, if not better. These are exciting times for the MMA fan, and things keep getting more and more intriguing.

TTFN, MF!

Assessing My Quirk Factor

2006-12-08T19:52:00.000-06:00

Thanks for sharing this page, Beth. The quiz was quick and fun. Although, it seemed to me that some of the multiple choice answers did not quite fit the question to which they ostensibly corresponded. (Think: "Have you ever tried sugar...or P.C.P.?")

Your Quirk Factor: 63%

You're so quirky, it's hard for you to tell the difference between quirky and normal.
No doubt about it, there's little about you that's "normal" or "average."

How Quirky Are You?

Early Thoughts on the Grammys

2006-12-07T14:51:00.000-06:00

This year's batch of Grammy nominations were just released. I'm glad to say that I don't find them to be nearly so nauseating as I did last year's. Here are some brief notes I made while browsing the full list of nominees:

+ This could be the year of Rick Rubin. This producer has been a major force in the careers of a wide variety of artists, including Run DMC, Slayer, and Johnny Cash. Two of the albums he produced in 2006 are up for Album of the Year- the latest releases from The Dixie Chicks and The Red Hot Chili Peppers.

+ Gnarls Barkley, James Blunt, Mary J. Blige, Justin Timberlake, and John Mayer all received an ample number of nods.

+ Even though U2 didn't release an album or a single this year, they still managed to get nominated. An updated version of "One" with Mary J. Blige on lead vocals was released on her latest album. The Grammy's sure love the fuck out of Bono, don't they? I bet a member of the nominations committee gives him a rusty trombone every day just because they appreciate the fact he's still alive. At least if they win this year, it'll be for a time tested song that's worth a damn.

+ On a similar note, Paul McCartney had a song nominated. Has anyone even heard it?

+ Nick, you'll love this one...."My Humps" has been nominated for Best Pop Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal.

+ Apparently the powers that be no longer recongize Tool or System of a Down as metal bands. Both acts have been nominated under the Best Hard Rock Performance category. If Buck Cherry beats them both out, I very truly might kill someone.

+ As for Best Metal Performance, Mastodon, Slayer, and Lamb of God are all nominated. These quality bands are in, and there's no sign of wannabes like Slipknot or Mudvayne? Thank you, Jesus!

+ Peter Frampton is nominated for an instrumental rock track entitled "Black Hole Sun." This simly has to be a cover of the Soundgarden radio hit of yesteryear. First, Johnny Cash covers Soundgarden and now Peter Frampton. I guess they're a band so good even established legends want in on their action.

More Random Stuff

2006-12-06T18:35:00.000-06:00

1) "Those are not for eating! Those are weapons of death."

I wish I could say that I came up with the above quote. However, my honest bones compel me to confess that its author is none other than Mr. Aaron Homoya. Usually a subdued personality, Aaron still has a healthy sense of humor. He crafted this gem during a conversation we had at church a couple of weeks ago.

The church we attend, Redeemer Presbyterian, shares its facilities with the Harrison Center for the Arts. In fact, the time of donuts and fellowship that follows each morning service takes place in one of the Center's galleries. One display that has been up for many weeks now is comprised of 6-8 grenades made of sugar. They essentially look like giant grenade-shaped gumdrops. Because they are equally as colorful as gumdrops, children are often drawn to the pedastel on which they are displayed. Aaron and I facetiously say that one day a kid's going to reach up, pluck a candied grenade from the cluster and attempt to take a bite out of it. This is the context that gave birth to Aaron's hilarious utterance.

2) 24 is one of the best shows in the entire history of television!

When I was a kid, about 10-12 years old, I thought Kiefer Sutherland was one of the coolest actors on the face of the planet. I was a particularly big fan of Flatliners and The Lost Boys. For some reason, I grew out of my infatuation with the younger Sutherland soon thereafter. And I apparently wasn't the only one. Kiefer didn't get many big ticket roles throughout the 90's, doing primarily small, cult films like Freeway and Truth or Consequences, NM.

But Kiefer returned to mainstream glory via TV in the innovative action/drama series 24. I must confess, I never watched an episode of the program until last year's Season 5. Because I knew one season equalled one mammoth adventure, I was always reluctant to just jump into a season already in progress. But thanks to some 24 loyalists from Kentucky, I was urged to watch last season from the premiere and I caught nearly every single episode after that.

And, as you can tell, I'm so happy I've rediscovered the Son of Donald. Counter-Terrorism agent Jack Bauer epitomizes the kick-ass, man's man action hero that the supersensitivity of politicial correctness had all but killed off. (Will this American patriot negotiate with terrorists? Hell no, bitches!) I am presently two-thirds of the way through the DVD set for Season Three, and I'm loving it just as much as Seasons One and Five. In the near future, I'll have to watch the even numbered seasons as well.

3) A sore throat and teaching grade school is a bad combination. After spending the weekend feeling like my throat tissue had magically converted to sand paper, I though I was well enough yesterday to go back to work. I was mostly right. When the kids were good, I felt fine. But after these 10 and 11 year-old brats flipped out on me in the afternoon, all the yelling at them I had to do did a number on my still recovering throat. I spent the morning hacking up the bloodiest mucous I have ever seen come out of my physical person.

I'm feeling much better now, thank God.

...I'm off to watch a few more episodes of Season 3 before bed. Adios.

Ending an Extended Absence

2006-12-02T15:26:00.000-06:00

Hello friends,

I apologize that it's been so long since my last update. The primary reason you haven't heard from me in so long is that I was without internet access from Thanksgiving day until Wednesday evening. Since my return to cyberspace, I've simply been negligent to post something new. Here's a few written snapshots of what I've been up to in the last ten or so days:

+Over the past six workdays, I substituted for a developmental kindergarten teacher. DK was a interesting place to be. It's my understanding that this class was originally created to give those kids with lower IQs or other learning disabilities an extra amount of care and attention to get them ready for first grade. However, this developmental kindergarten class is a disparate mix of these types of children with those most often labeled as "special." Three of the seven children are just that little bit slower than your typical kindergartener. The other four children consist of two autistic children (one of which truly does live in his own little world), a Hispanic boy who's essentially mute speaking neither English nor Spanish, and a little boy named Kyle who has Downs Syndrome and leukemia.

The classes went fairly smooth. I had much more fun than I had headaches. The only real problems I had were with Carl, a boy with an IQ so low he consistently confuses circles and squares and struggles to trace dotted lines. Carl decided on our second day together that he was really going to test his limits by yelling at me and then hitting me several times after I put him in time out. His actions landed him the distinction of being the first "special" student I've sent to the principal's office.

I also have several interesting Kyle stories. Unfortunately, most of them require me to act out his maneurisms so they can't be told here. One that can be shared happened just yesterday. Kyle had a rough day on Thursday. He was out of school the entire day receiving various treatements, including chemo and a spinal tap. The pain medication he was given Friday morning led him to act out quite a bit, whereas he is usually one of the best behaved students.

One thing that always amuses Kyle is to go limp like a noodle and force his caretakers to pick him up off the floor. And though the smile he gives you as you lift him is adorable, the whole affair can become annoying after his fourth or fifth straight refusal to stand. The truth of the matter is he knows better, so the regular teacher and the paraprofessional of the classroom will put him in time out every now and again. After Kyle had staged his limp noodle act for the second time on Friday, I felt compelled to send him to the time out chair. That gave him the distinction of being the first terminally ill student I've ever punished.

+A week ago Tuesday, the latest Killswitch Engage album came out. This band is definitely one of my favorite "new" bands on the scence today. I put new in quotation marks because the band has been around for nearly a decade although they've only emerged into the mainstream over the past three years. I also picked up their concert/documentary DVD last weekend, so I have been enjoying all manner of KsE material the past couple of weeks. I'd recommend the purchase of their albums, but I don't know that most readers of this blog would even entertain such a purchase. So I'm content just to testify that I love this band.

+Starting late Thursday night, I began feeling a bit under the weather. My energy continued to flag throughout the school day yesterday. And now I'm in a situation where it hurts to swallow anything. The silver lining here is that I have no fever, nausea, or body aches so I think I can rule out strep throat or mono. Whatever I've got, it's been kicking my butt the last thirty-six hours and all I've really done is sleep poorly, drink many fluids, chew food into a fine paste, and watch most of 24, Season One on DVD. I can only hope I'll be back in good health before Monday morning when the new workweek arrives.

That's all I have for now, friends. Again, I apologize for taking so long to update this blog. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

A Holiday Classic Revisited

2006-11-21T18:35:00.000-06:00

I bet there's one big ass wishbone inside that bird.

A Quick Follow Up

2006-11-21T16:48:00.000-06:00

Behold the leg kick that spelled the end for Matt Hughes's second title reign. I can only hope that it did not also signal the end of his ability to compete at an elite level.

Dustin, thank you for your comment on my last post. You're very right- One significant loss cannot undo the astounding career that preceded it. Matt's a NINE-TIME UFC Champion! (He would be an 11-time champion if Joe Riggs and Royce Gracie would have made the cut down to 170 lbs.)

To give some perspective on how truly significant it is to be a 9-time champeen, consider the following trivia: Randy Couture won a strap 6 times (or 7 if you're the type that recognizes interim titles); Tito Ortiz won 6; Frank Shamrock, Pat Miletich, and Tim Sylvia tie with 5; and Chuck Liddell has won 4 thus far. If Hughes is ultimately able to reclaim the welterweight crown, he'll add another stellar achievement to his resume by becoming the first fighter in UFC history to win the same title three times.

The now former champ is already eager to get back on the road to glory. Here's what Matt himself said today (See www.matt-hughes.com):

First off, I'd like to say that Georges fought a heck of a fight. He's a nice guy and a well-rounded fighter and he's going to be tough to beat. Number two, I'd like to thank everybody for all their support and I've already talked to the UFC about getting a rematch sometime and they said that's fine. I don't know when that will be or if I will fight anyone before that, but I anxiously await a rematch with Georges because I just think I can do so much better.

Going into the fight I felt very confident. Even up to the point where I lost, I really felt God was going to have me win that fight, but it wasn't His plan. I always pray that God's will is done before a fight and, as long as that's done, I'm happy and I'll definitely fight again. Even with a loss, I can't be anything but thankful for all that God has done in my life.

For those who might be worried about me, I'm fine. I've got some color to my face - a black eye and a few scabs and bruises; but this is not one of those things where I have to go out and 'redeem myself' so I can look myself in the mirror. I just got beat by a guy who was better than me that night and I can live with that. So, physically and mentally, I'm fine.

I have so much respect for this man. Even though some fighters and fans consider him to be arrogant, statements like this one reveal that Matt can also be quite humble. Even if we should learn that his best days as a competitor are indeed behind him, I'll never jump off his bandwagon.

New Champions and Fallen Heroes

2006-11-19T13:14:00.000-06:00

[Blogger's Note: This essay is yet another entry using sports as a foil for discussing deeper dimensions of human existence. As long as you're interested in topics like joy, perseverance, and existential meaning, you don't have to share my sports allegiences to find the following eight paragraphs to be worth your time. ...At least I hope that's the case.]

In recent posts, I have used both the UFC and the NFL to help me think about how my existence as a social creature is shaped by the professional sports I enjoy. Several commenting friends agreed with my thoughts concerning the way that one's emotional life and relationships can be edified by one's involvement with a favorite athlete or team. I noted how it does my soul good to see "my guy(s)" be victorious and (even in defeat) perform at an elite level. Many entries on this blog have been devoted to my strong appreciation for Mixed Martial Arts and fighters like Matt Hughes and Randy Couture. I've expressed my anxiety and anticipation leading up to an important fight, and I've done my best to articulate my satisfaction when "my guy" prevails.

This post is my attempt to express the other side of the coin: the letdown when my favorite athlete falls short. Last night at UFC 65, Matt Hughes- the most dominant champion in UFC history- was himself dominated by the new 170-lb champion of the world, George St. Pierre. That Hughes lost is not itself shocking. On a day when the top two teams in college football went head to head in Columbus, OH, the #1 and #2 welterweights in the entire fight game threw down last night in the Octagon. And the unofficial margin between these rankings was widely regarded to be razor thin. So when the #2 man toppled the competitor who had held the #1 spot for so many years, the new king's victory did not come as a tremendous surprise.

What was surprising was the way Georges St. Pierre owned Matt Hughes. For roughly seven minutes St. Pierre had his way with the defending champion. He continually scored with punches and kicks on the feet and convincingly stuffed the two or three takedowns Hughes attempted. When St. Pierre's left high kick connected to the right side of Hughes' head, the pit of my stomach dropped out. Seconds thereafter, St. Pierre was on top of his floored opponent putting the exclamation mark on his performance. He hit Hughes with punches and elbows until the referee pulled him off and called a stop to the fight. Days ago, I was debating whether Matt Hughes might retire with the title belt still wrapped securely around his waist. Now I genuinely doubt that my favorite active fighter will ever hold championship gold again.

Joy and pain indeed go hand-in-hand with being a devoted sports fan. At the end of the day, however, they are the byproducts of deeper processes and structures. One's sports commitments help to shape not only one's activities and relationships at the micro level. These commitments, in degrees that vary from person to person, also play a role in shaping the understanding one has of the past and one's expectations for the future at the macro level. The struggle to lead a meaningful and rewarding life in a harsh and seemingly arbitrary world requires us to dangle the proverbial carrot in front out ourselves to keep up pushing forward from day to day. At the same time, we need to know the carrots we once pursued were objects truly worthy of our attention.

Sports serve as one source of these carrots. Our incentive for making it through the day, the week, the month, the year is often to make it to tip off, kick off, the first pitch or the opening bell. We can endure many nuisances and trials because these carrots assure us that something potentially invigorating and validating awaits us if we can get there. Whether one prefers to view it as a form of community building or vicarious living, even the mere anticipation of cheering on "my guy(s)" to victory can sweeten an otherwise sour stretch of existence. That sweet taste can linger for year upon year if we can conscientiously maintain that history has validated the accomplishments of our favorite team or athlete. (Recall my previous G.O.A.T. rant.)

But a sweet taste can turn bitter if the ever-unfolding events of this life compel us to reinterpret accomplishments that until now have served as a source of satisfaction. In the sports world, a poignant loss in the the big game can ruin an entire year's worth of joy. For example, the adulation and excitement that accompanied the Colts' 13-o start last year were quickly forgotten after the team dropped three of its last four games and didn't even come close to championship glory. For the tried and true, White and Blue faithful who had selected the Colts as an important locus of their hopes and satisfaction from September through January, the team's unceremonious exit from the post-season flat out hurt.

I'm trying to determine the nature and depth of the hurt I feel over Hughes' loss last night. Unlike the NFL, accomplishment in the UFC is measured from single bout to single bout rather than in terms of an entire season. I've already documented the extensive success Hughes has had as an MMA competitor. One championship loss to St. Pierre cannot undermine the legacy he's built over the past six plus years. But what his loss does do for yours truly is cast a bit of darkness over the future. It limits, if not outright precludes, many of the hopes and aspirations I held dearly on Friday.

One of my heroes had his ass handed to him, and I'm more than a little bummed about the whole thing. The new champion is an amazing fighter, a great guy, a humble guy. But he's not "my guy." I wonder how what has happened to Matt Hughes will shape my interest in and enthusiasm for the sport of MMA- what has long been a great locus of enjoyment and satisfaction in my life. Only time will tell.