to…. Professionalism!

July 25th, 2010

The graduate-school laurels I’ve been resting on have finally lost their novelty.  (Although, I actually wrote that sentence and then remembered I’d just finished a six-month research gig.)  Well, the comfort of those laurels diminished even faster.  I’ve launched a fresh batch of research and, at long last, have started scouting around for an academic publisher.  What has that got to do with the price of rice on this website?….

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Review – Annie Chun’s Soup

July 22nd, 2010

Allow me to be brief.  Annie Chun’s just-add-water soup: http://www.anniechun.com/our-food/soup-bowls is nasty.  It’s real nasty.

Review – Battlestar Galactica

July 22nd, 2010

I’ll extend to everyone the courtesy that the EW.com article did not extend to me – namely, I’ll tell you that if you click on ‘read more’ there’s going to be spoilers, so if you haven’t seen the whole series, but plan to, don’t keep reading.   I’ll also offer up the sound advice that if you are in the middle or planning to start watching the series on DVD, don’t dally.  Helpful friends will accidentally blurt things out that ruin the suspense, and mean-spirited individuals won’t blurt so much as Nazi-speed-talk spoilers at you.  And, because many of the actors have since gone on to perform in other shows, half-witted writers will label said actors with descriptors that, also, ruin the suspense.  Take the DVDs, crawl into the nearest cave, and don’t come out until you hit “Daybreak, parts 2 & 3.”  (And, by all means, stop right here, unless you’ve already seen the whole thing, or don’t care.)

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The Soul of Sarcasm

July 16th, 2010

I recently discovered that some smarty-pants put a reply comment on a book review that I posted at Amazon.  Actually, he wasn’t so much a smarty-pants as a stuck-up out-of-state relative of the person who wrote the book I reviewed.  Had to be a relative because no one but a relative or a grad student would have bought Ella Marie Rast’s “The Whole Dam Story: The Drowning and Rising of a River City in the West.”

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How to Ruin a Persuasive Argument

July 15th, 2010

I ran across someone’s supposedly persuasive list of 11 reasons not to consume dairy products.  You’ll find the link below, if you want to check it out yourself, but, forgive me if wax sarcastic first.

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Misinterpreting the 21st Century

July 14th, 2010

I’m afraid my readership isn’t going to be broad enough to solve this problem, but I’m still going to try.  People… spread the word.  It’s the 21st century.  It really is.  But lately when I’ve gone out in public I’ve encountered compelling evidence to suggest that not everyone’s taken a close look at their calendar.

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Shamelessly Naked (feet)

July 1st, 2010

I don’t know that this is so much ‘commentary’ as ‘discovery’, but I’m not making a new category for it.  I ran across some research recently that touted the seemingly-miraculous benefits of going barefoot or, at least, wearing flip-flops.  Some studies in arthritis suggest that stabilizing footwear (i.e. really sturdy or cushiony shoes) actually increase the stress load on a person’s joints.  Nature, evolution, or what-have-you did, in fact, design the human foot to work without accessory, even if a modern paved world full of broken glass and rusty nails makes going barefoot a hazard to be reckoned with.  I wasn’t terribly keen to put the theory to test, and haven’t worn flip-flops since my early childhood.  But, ever the adventurer, I parted with $6 and took my own feet out for a test drive.  Literally.

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If you were a Podcaster….

June 30th, 2010

I’m not laboring under the delusion that the people who produce podcasts are reading my blog… but if they were, if they ever had occassion to stop by, I have some advice for them.  (Just in case.  It’s not, mathematically speaking, impossible that a podcaster could happen upon this blog….)  Here goes:

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Without which not

June 24th, 2010

If you’re a Battlestar Galactica fan, you may remember that as the translation for the Latin-titled episode (8th in season 4.0) “Sine Qua Non.”  And if you’re just getting into the series, or ever plan to, be warned – there’s spoilers and bitter commentary ahead.

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Book Dedications, and Bad Ideas

June 11th, 2010

It’s another topic that fits under “Advice you Probably don’t need” and “on being an author” – I might have to make that its own category if this keeps happening.  I’ve got a thing worth saying, but (for reasons I hope become clear) I’m going to have to be a little vague.  Bear with me, and please don’t contact me demanding to know the author or dedicatee in question (again, for reasons I hope become clear).  Last night, I pulled a book from my “to read” stash and, though I usually don’t pay strict attention to the dedication page, that happened to be where I opened it to.  The author had dedicated the book to a contemporary (and, as it turns out, controversial) politician.  I had wanted to read the book but found myself selecting another for myriad complex reasons.  Not because of the controversial, contemporary politician… but because I thought the dedication itself was short-sighted, ill-advised, and a plain dumb thing to have done. 

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