Well that didn’t friggin’ work out. I left Champaign-Urbana for St. Louis 7:30ish, so my ETA in the Lou was 10:30, whereupon I would have gone to Maj to drink some cold ones with my friends. A half hour into the three hour trip, all seems to be going fine, aside from noticing my temperature gauge had been fluctuating. I’m passing a car, look in the rearview to make sure that it’s safe to pull back out of the passing lane and lo and behold a massive cloud of smoke is training behind me. Quickly looking forward, I notice that it’s billowing out of my hood. Truly billowing. I pull onto the shoulder, take it out of gear, kill the engine while still at thirty, and brake to a smoke billowing stop. Grabbed the flashlight that I somehow thought I might need and pop the hood. The smoke is coming from the radiator and there’s globs of antifreeze all over the place. Looks like a radiator hose burst. Fucking sweet.

So I push the car into the grass, curse most profanely under my breath, then pop the trunk to grab my luggage. I’m not leaving it with the car, since all my stuff was in there and if the car got towed by the state troopers while I was gone I’d really be up the creek. I sling my rather large and heavy bag over my shoulders like a backpack and look up and down the road. More lights to the North, and I remembered just passing a town. Off I march to the North. My car was just off the road of mile marker 208, and the town was at exit 212, so I guess I marched 4 miles. It wasn’t too bad, the sky was clear and the stars were shining. I had my flashlight so the cars could see me and I could see any holes in the ground or roadkill that I might trip over. After a while, my face started sweating pretty good, surprising since it’s just a smidge above freezing temperatures, but in general I was pretty comfortable marching along on the shoulder. I walk into the town of Tuscola, most notable for their factory outlet malls, and head for the first gas station I see. The friendly worker inside lent me a phonebook and I called up the local tow service to get a truck to pick me up and then get the car. The woman answering the phone at the tow company said that I would have to wait until the morning to get my car repaired, but there were lots of hotels around. I didn’t like that, but hell, it could be a fun adventure. Maybe I could hook up with some chablis drinking lady at a hotel bar off the highway. I went outside to wait for the tow truck. After twenty minutes, I was paged back inside. The woman from the tow company called to tell me that there weren’t any trucks, she can’t get a hold of her driver, she hopes he’s OK. I hoped so too, and thanks for trying. She recommended I call the company in nearby Arcola. Forget it, says I. I call up a Champaign tow service to drive a half hour to pick me up and take me and my car back home. The driver was a nice fellow, a former long hauler who lived in Branson for a while. He took the car to my mechanic and dropped me off at home for $148, of which $100 will be reimbursed to me by my insurance company. (I called them while waiting for the truck to arrive.) Gotta get up early tomorrow to explain to my mechanic why my car is there, and please please can he repair the hose so I can go see my family for Thanksgiving instead of eating turkey cold cuts by myself.

Long story, but that’s why I’m not in St. Louis yet. I swear by Krom that I will be there tomorrow. Come hell, high water, or a rental car, I will get the hell out of this city and into the company of people who care about me.

Sam at Hammurabi has a very nice post up about the Iraqi Marshland, now intentionally made into a desert wasteland.

Kim Du Toit has some comments on the OICW as well. His conclusion is that it’s way too heavy, particularly in that the electronics require a 40 lb backpack battery. In this update to the post, he links to these specs for a 6.8mm upper receiver for the M4.

I wrote an angry post below, so I owe you a pleasant one here. A Thanksgiving joke my dad sent me:

The Parrot

A young man named John received a parrot as a gift. The parrot had a bad attitude and an even worse vocabulary. Every word out of the bird’s mouth was rude, obnoxious and laced with profanity.

John tried and tried to change the bird’s attitude by consistently saying only polite words, playing soft music and anything else he could think of to “clean up” the bird’s vocabulary.

Finally, John was fed up and he yelled at the parrot. The parrot yelled back. John shook the parrot and the parrot got angrier and even ruder.

John, in desperation, threw up his hand, grabbed the bird and put him in the freezer. For a few minutes the parrot squawked and kicked and screamed.

Then suddenly there was total quiet.

Not a peep was heard for over a minute. Fearing that he’d hurt the parrot, John quickly opened the door to the freezer. The parrot calmly stepped out onto John’s outstretched arms and said “I believe I may have offended you with my rude language and actions.

I’m sincerely remorseful for my inappropriate transgressions and I fully intend to do everything I can to correct my rude and unforgivable behavior.”

John was stunned at the change in the bird’s attitude.

As he was about to ask the parrot what had made such a dramatic change in his behavior, the bird continued, “May I ask what the turkey did?”

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

I laughed.

I mentioned my troubles with payroll yesterday. Today I went up there to find out whether an off-cycle check had been ordered for my reimbursement, and the helpful payroll staff looked it up and found out that I don’t. Best case scenario: it hadn’t been processed yet and I’ll have it next week; worst case: it’ll show up on the December check on the fifteenth. So I went to financial aid and filled out the simple form for an emergency loan. The university sets aside $250,000 for these loans. If someone in the campus community (students, staff, faculty) needs a short-term loan, they can borrow up to $300 once a sememster for 45 days, then pay it back with a finance charge of about three dollars, give or take fifty cents. The clerk in financial aid was extremely sympathetic to my situation (you’re one of the ones!) and was efficient in getting the form filled out and entered into the system. Went over to a cashier’s window and got enough money to keep me above the two mortgage payments’ liquidity threshold that a man must never allow himself to fall below. The whole process took about 20 minuts, from payroll to cashier. Everyone that I’ve dealt with in getting this clerical error fixed has been nothing but helpful and patient, and I appreciate it a great deal. So why am I talking about it so much on this blog? Here’s the ACTION subsection of the email the Graduate Employees Organization sent out to all members of the fake union, with contact information wiped out:

Action

The GEO members will not stand by as the university plunders our

hard-earned wages! There are a variety of actions the University

administration can take to shield GA/PGAs from this tax burden while

maintaining compliance with the law. We are working to change the

University administrations stance on this issue while also working with

our affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, to lobby Congress for

an amendment to the tax code. Your help is needed! You can take action in

the following ways:

* Attend a press conference regarding this tax on Wednesday, November 19,

at noon in the Board Room of the University YMCA (1001 S. Wright St,

Champaign). A good showing demonstrates to the public that this is an

important issue

* Join the GEO: more membership strengthens our bargaining power.

* Help on the GA/PGA Task Force, our next meeting is on Tuesday, November

18, from 5-6pm in the University YMCA (ask what room at the front desk)

* Contact GEO member ___________ at _______@uiuc.edu or contact the GEO

office (_____@_______ ________) to learn more about this issue or to help

on the GA/PGA Task Force.

Watch for future updates to learn how we can fight back!

No mention of the GEO’s role in having a whole bunch of department’s grad students reclassified as GAs instead of RAs. And no mention of how people can just go out and fix it themselves, like I did. Took less than an hour, well worth almost two grand. Let me once again state that I’m not in general anti-union. But I am vehemently anti-fake-union. How do you tell whether a union is fake or legit? Here’s a good rule of thumb: a real union trains its members in its trade. Got that? One of my best friends is a union electrician, he’s hardcore pro-union and hates all Republicans for being anti-labor (with the probably exception of myself). But he’s in a real union, his union taught him everything he knows and spent three years investing in him. He owes those guys his loyalty, both in keeping up on paying dues and in showing solidarity whenever his union votes to take some sort of unified action. The GEO is a fake union. They have no ability to teach anyone anything except how to complain loudly and make paper-mache puppets. It is worthless and I owe it nothing, except this recent hassle. I grate over the prospect of having to pay dues to paper-mache puppet and radical stick-sign makers. I will never sit back and let my financial security be defended by these people as their email suggests I do. They are un-needed, and anyone who depends on them to get things done is a fool. Take care of it yourself, it’s easy. Graduate school is not a unionizable trade. Neither is teaching in general. I don’t see that teachers should feel that they owe their union anything. Their union didn’t train them, some college did. Their union can claim that they owe their jobs to them, but I don’t think that’s true, except in the case of crappy teachers that can’t be fired but should. I think teachers should get paid more, but I don’t think that can happen unless the teaching market gets freed up from the union shackles, kind of like this program seeks to do. There are teachers out there who are worth that kind of money, and I think the worst thing about the shitty pay teachers get is that it encourages the students to disrespect their teachers. I think most teachers could do a great job if they would get paid better for being excellent teachers and not just doing their time in the union. And some would get fired. Let me clarify here, I am not advocating teachers get paid better. I am advocating breaking up the teachers unions and then paying the good ones better. We do have mandatory testing now, ya know. HA! I know two people personally well who are non-union teachers, my mom and this guy‘s fiancee. And I know the former is a great teacher and would guess that the latter is too. They teach at Catholic schools.

Once again, I’m rambling, and thus reserve the right to come back and alter this post for clarity’s sake.

Ah, big news today. Tino Martinez was traded to the Devil Rays for relief pitching right-hander Evan Rust and a player to be named. Rust has a good K/BB ratio at 61:25, 12 saves, and an ERA at 2.96, somewhat high, but remember he’s been pitching in front of a farm team of what is very nearly a minor league team playing in the major leagues. And hopefully that player to be named might just be named Delmon Young.

It snowed overnight. And by overnight, I mean before I woke up and left the house. I crashed at 6 and woke at 10:30. No snow was falling when I went to sleep. And by snow, I don’t mean a Lileksian 8 footer, just a light dusting that lingers in the shadows. It’s pretty cold and windy out there. I’m finishing up some work and doing some of my own research today. If I can leave here early enough, I can pick up my birthday present to myself on the way home. Tonight I’m hoping to hit the town for a few cold ones with the local gang. Tomorrow night I’ll be in the Lou, although I’m a bit disappointed to find that my sister won’t be there until Wednesday evening, so I won’t get to see her on her 24th birthday. If anyone wants to say yo, I’ll be stopping at Majestic Restaurant on my way into town, probably around 9:00pm.

The Daily Illini ran a story on Thursday about a tax on tuition waivers that applied to 92 students. I was one of those 92, but my situation was far, far worse than any they cited in the article. I had $1054 withheld in federal taxes this past month. I was pretty furious, but assumed it was just a minor clerical error that could be fixed easily. And it was. I had a form in my mailbox on Oct. 25th that I had to turn in on the 31st. I was busy that day, so I threw it in a stack on my desk and got busy, then later forgot about it. When my paycheck came and I found out I was bumped into the Swedish tax bracket, I dug out the form, filled it out, took it to my dean for a signature, then dropped it off to a helpful woman in payroll. So I’m also one of the 12 who filled out the form after getting the check. She said that I should get an off-cycle paycheck for the corrected balance, but the article says that I won’t be reimbursed until next month’s paycheck. The big problem is that I’m not considered an Illinois resident in the tuition office. I have to fill out another, much longer form to correct that. This all happens on the same month that the power company expects me to cough up a $250 deposit, and a month after my escrow payment went up $18 a month to cover the increase in property taxes on my crib. When it rains, it pours. At least I have enough work and hobbies to keep me busy until this all passes over. It is too bad that the batting cages aren’t open anymore, though. That would have been great the day I got that check.

The funniest thing about that situation is that the Graduate Employee Organization, the fake union that I’m forced to belong to, is raising a big stink over it. They sent me an email saying not to worry, that they’d take care of everything. This was several hours after I’d already taken care of everything, and two weeks after I should have pre-emptively taken care of everything. The funniest thing is that it’s the GEO’s fault that it had to happen in any case, because they insisted that certain jobs be reclassified to make graduate students look more like employees and less like students. The Law of Unintended consequences is a bitch for those who think they know how to do things better than the people who have been doing them for years. But it sure is easy to blame them for it once you get your own way and “improve” things.

By the way, I link Iraq Now in the next post and added it to the blogroll. Check it out, I read the whole thing, lots of very insightful posts, especially read War of Ideologies II: Weapons of War.

I heard on the radio in the shower this morning that the M-16 rifle is being replaced as the standard issue weapon of the US Army. Here’s a pretty detailed explanation of why by an officer deployed in Iraq, that goes into the dangers of the supply and procurement protocols of Army beaurocracy. The most obvious problem in an urban combat setting is that the standard M16A2 is too long to effectively react and target from an armored vehicle. The short term solution is to issue M16 carbines, although he says that many of his men armed themselves with the HK MP-5 submachine guns that SEALS and most standing counter-terrorism units use, like the branch of the SAS trained in counter-terrorism operations. The eventual replacement of the M16 will be the OICW, with target specs available here and some good pictures of the current prototype here. One of the most revolutionary of the design ideas is to incorporate “smart” ammunition, basically a 20mm shell that the soldier programs in a distance-controlled detonation point. So if you’re fighting someone who’s in a hole, you program a shell to blow up right over his hole and shoot it in his direction, instead of blooping grenades at him from an M203, or trying to pick him off WWI style. Or you could use it to clear a room full of snipers by shooting it through a window. That sounds like a big advantage. Too bad it won’t be ready until 2005, and not in wide issue until 2009.

Last night, C-Bot and I went to the Illinois v. Western Illinois game. It was my first basketball game in spite of having lived here for three years. It was a nonconference game, so the level of competition and atmosphere weren’t comparable to what the full Big Ten basketball experience is like, but still was an entertaining game. The final score was 94-66 but it wasn’t nearly that close. Western was dropping threes towards the end of the game like it was nothing. With 6 minutes left in the first half, they scored their 10th and 11th points and the Orange Crush fan section started chanting, “Double digits.” Pretty funny, but not hockey game quality taunting.

That was the best concert I’ve seen in a very long time. Bouncing Souls was comparable, but before that, I can’t recall a better show. I never reviewed 20 Miles because I was disgusted with the sound guy. He ruined the show by cranking up the levels well above the distortion point on the sound system. I don’t know what the term is in live production, but in studio it’s called fucking clipping, and if you let it happen, you are incompetent. I doubt I will go to see a show at Cowboy Monkey again after that nonsense. Ruined a perfectly good show. Tonight’s show was outstanding. We got there at the end of the opener’s set, they were called Devil Driver. They sounded pretty good, the two songs I heard. Second band was Morbid Angel. Their first two songs were atrocious, absolutely awful. It’s death metal, and that’s not exactly my bag, not that I have one. Basically it didn’t sound like they were all playing the same song. The third song and thereafter was different. That is a very complex band, and it’s impossible to really understand what they’re doing just by seeing one show. First of all, their drummer is a cheater, he’s got four or five racks of equipment behind him, digital triggers and so forth, to generate ridiculously fast kick beats. The lead guitarist is extraordinarily talented in that particular genre, and would frequently go off into solos that seemed to leave the rest of the band behind. At some point in each solo, it would pop up in my head that these guys need to practice playing together more, but then the band would stop playing all at the same time and jump back in to the rest of the song. Very interesting, very much not what I’m used to, and after you get used to it, very enjoyable. The headliner, Super Joint Ritual, blew me away. Even now, two hours later, the mind is still thoroughly boggled. The lead singer is from Pantera and the bassist is Hank III, but the real star of the show was the guitarist. At least in my opinion. This dude was playing blues chords. I don’t know what his name is, but he played in Corrosion of Conformity. He rocks.

Ordered myself a very beautiful and expensive present this morning. Going to my first death metal concert tonight to see Morbid Angel and Super Joint Ritual. I expect it to thoroughly rock, and will stand for nothing less. This is the last day before Thanksgiving break. I’ll be in the Lou for a few days and will bring my present with me. Tuesday is my lil sister’s birthday. She’ll be 24. Thanksgiving is my birthday. I’ll be 26. It’s insane how fast time goes by when you’re in grad school. Or really how fast it goes when you’re old. You see, when you’re only ten or so, you only have ten years of experience behind you, so a day is like 1/3652nd of your life, but as you get older the fraction gets smaller and smaller, so days seem to get shorter and years too. That’s why kids are so impatient and old people so bewildered. I have explained all that you will ever need to know. Go forth and be joyful.

The weather today is fabulous, in the lower 60s and sunny. I just got off my roof. Great day to clean out the gutters.

I usually get at least one hit a day from someone looking for this transcript, from the SNL episode with Heather Locklear where she’s selling pasta makers. It’s hilarious, I agree.

Blues lost, what a crappy game. They played without heart except in a few inspiring bursts. Not enough. Detroit won too, so aside from the games in hand, we might be tied here. I met a good kid tonight who’s in the reserves and is en route to Iraq on Dec. 7th. I bought him a beer (technically a miller light, but that’s what he wanted) and told him to use his common sense and listen to what the people he’s relieving tell him. Then I walked across town to see some people. I’d guess I walked a little bit short of ten miles today. My class is cancelled for tomorrow, but I’ve got a full day ahead of me, so better hit the hay before it’s too late and yellow face comes out.

More goofy quizzes! Easy, cheap content! Behold!

You are an Akira-class Battlecruiser, every ship
should be like this. You are very versatile
and can be trusted to perform any task with
excellence. Powerful, agile, and graceful.
You, my friend have it going on.

Which Class of Federation Starship are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Yeah, I don’t know what that is either, but I sure hope a wookie is driving.

Also on tap for tonight, I’m gonna go watch the Blues v. Coyotes. They beat us in the season opener, but this game should be much better. Osgood comes in with a 4-game win streak, and hopefully there’ll be some fireworks between the former Blues sparkplug, Tyson Nash, who signed with Phoenix as a free agent in the offseason, and current instigator Mike Danton. Doug Weight will be returning from his 4 game suspension, but Keith Tkachuck will be out on his. During my lunchtime ice skate, I was talking to Chris about how a few years back the Blues were trying to decide whether to sign Eric Lindros or Tkachuck. Damned if management didn’t make a good decision there. Sucker Rangers.

I bought myself a Nintendo 64 on Monday, along with the greatest video game of all time, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. That game is so much fun. You may notice that a few features of this blog are inspired by that game. First off is the name, “Hey Listen,” is what Navi says to you when she’s got some advice to keep you from straying too far off a mission. We used to play this game all the time in college and would sometimes say that to each other in Navi’s voice to get each other’s attention. Very nerdy, somewhat funny. The only other residual is the permalink icon above each post. That’s Link stabbing down at the post. Aren’t I friggin’ clever? There used to be a color scheme that was sorta Zelda inspired, check out the March 2003 archives for an example. I don’t think that I ever discussed the game on here aside from that, so it didn’t make much sense, so I changed the format to work it more seemlessly into my static website. That game is great. It’s bringing back all sorts of memories from college. I think when I go home for a few days around Thanksgiving (also my birthday, I’ll be even older again) I’m going to try to track down a few of my old college roommates that I’ve lost touch with and see if I can meet them for a few brews and tell tales of olden days. Should be fun.

Today Nov. 19th is Kim Du Toit’s birthday, also known as National Ammo Day. Kim’s idea is to get each of the 75 million gun owners to go out and buy 100 rounds of their favorite cartridges, good for its own sake and also to piss off the anti-gun folks. I’ll be leaving work early on this beautiful Wednesday to go home and inspect my roof, which will need some more tar in spots before the winter comes. Also have some errands to run, gotta go to the bank and will also stop by the shop down my street for two boxes of .40 S&W and to see whether they have one of these in stock. Just doing my part, and picking up what should be a fun hobby that I left off when I was about 13 or so.

Update: Picked up 100 rounds of Winchester 180 grain 40 Smith & Wesson. Have to order the CZ, but hopefully will have it by Christmas break, I’ll bring it to STL for any of you guys who want to hit the range then.

Here’s a damning line from VDH’s column from yesterday: After all, a colonel who blows apart an Iraqi Baathist in April might win a medal, but if in October he shoots a round off near a terrorist suspect’s head to save the lives of his men, he can expect a court martial.

As always, read the whole thing. The topic is how to win the war, and crucially, how to keep support alive at home. Usually he has his columns on Fridays, this Tuesday installment was pointed out by Missouri blogger, The Sophorist. And if you don’t know which colonel he’s talking about, go read up on Colonel West, who’s facing 8 years for saving his men’s lives. And don’t read too much into the claim that the prisoner was an IP, whereas the majority of them, judging from the Iraqi blogs in the left column are brave and widely respected by the population, some of them are terrorists. (That article via this informative post by Maj. Sean Bannion regarding how optimistic we can be about a rapid emergence of a federalist Iraq. He’s not very optimistic, barring a sudden outbreak of personal responsibility.)