November 2003 Archives

Well maybe. Everyone knows that every state has it’s share of odd, and often downright stupid, laws on the books. For example, in Texas it is illegal to sell your eye and a law in Harker Heights says city employees still have to obey the traffic regulations.

Things in Kentucky seem to be going downhill despite the law-created civil society we supposedly live in, however. The danger to females in bathing suits on highways is evidently so great and incidents so frequent that a law prohibiting any female from “appear[ing] in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club,” was passed. The law was amended: “The provisions of this statute shall not apply to females weighing less than 90 pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds, nor shall it apply to female horses.” Maybe small girls and big ones escape notice or scare away offenders, respectively. I have no comment to make about horses in bathing suits.

As I type this my roommate is sitting in the living room watching a football game. This isn’t in itself abnormal, in fact it’s quite normal. But the game is muted and in the background Baby is listening to “Avenue Q”, a Broadway musical. Not only that but he’s eating a hot dog on a burger bun and Baked Lays potato chips. The overall picture is a little incongruous.

So, I’m going to go study abroad again because it was so great the first time. This one is much shorter and during the summer. The Communication Studies program that I’m in sponsors a three week program in China—Hong Kong and Beijing—on the media and globalization. It’s being led by the Chairman of our department so it should be a great course, and interesting into the bargain.

So in May after school is over I’ll go to China for three weeks and finish up my college career. The course will earn me the final 6 credits I need to graduate from NYU. I can’t really express how simultaneously exciting and horrifying the idea of graduating is for me. If you stop and think about it, my entire life up to now has been preparation for the next stage of my education. But now there’s potentially no more eduction to prepare for; granted I could go on to graduate school and even a doctorate, but that’s not likely. I just don’t see the need for those kinds of degrees. At least for the very near future I don’t plan more school. So that means it’s time for a job and real life and all that goes along with that.

Like I said, I’m scared of that. As adult as I may be legally, I still don’t feel grown up at all. I long for the days when my mommy made decisions for me because honestly there are too darn many responsibilities in grown up life: from choosing what to buy at the grocery store to where to live to paying credit card bills and student loans.

In the end I know I don’t have much choice about growing up but that doesn’t make it any less nerve wracking. So for the next few months at least I’m gonna try not to think about it while at the same time thinking about it. Being an anal retentive as I am (like many in my family) I have to have a plan, so I’ll come up with one, but right now I can’t see what it is going to be. I suppose my Mom gives the best advice: go down the road and see what you can see, then go down the road and see a little further. Eventually you’ll see what you need to do.

There is a guy called Julian Dibbell who is conducting a very interesting “experiment” that tests the confluence of the tangible and the intangible. He describes his proposition on his weblog: “On April 15, 2004, I will truthfully report to the IRS that my primary source of income is the sale of imaginary goods — and that I earn more from it, on a monthly basis, than I have ever earned as a professional writer.”

He goes on to further explain, “In December 2002 I published an article in Wired magazine called Unreal Estate Boom, or, The 79th Richest Nation on Earth Doesn’t Exist. It’s about people who buy and sell — for real dollars, and sometimes for a living — imaginary fortresses, weapons, and other figments of the massively multiplayer role-playing game Ultima Online. That article is not about me, or about the fairly predictable Ultima addiction into which I was falling as I wrote the piece, or about the possibly harebrained conclusion to which that addiction finally led me. This web page, however, is about all those things. Here you will find a regularly updated record of one man’s attempt to get rich selling, literally, castles in the air.”

Earlier this year I read about this and thought it was interesting, but today I came across it again and to my surprise he’s still at it. You can read up on his experience on his weblog, Play Money.

There is a particularly amusing exchange between him and a PayPal representative that can eb found here.

Over the last week I have been converting my weblog from Blogger.com to new application called Movable Type. The new program gives me a lot more control over the way my blog looks and works, so for example I will be able to add a photo gallery directly into the blog. That is coming in the near future I hope, but there are some technical difficulties at the moment.

I hope you like the new design. If you have comments you can now post them directly on the page, by clicking on the “Comments” link below. But remember that everyone who visits will be able to read what you post. Please be nice, there is a (slight) chance that people other than Katie’s mom read my weblog.

The last few weeks I have (re)discovered that I absolutely love to read. For some reason the past few years I haven’t really spent much time reading novels or books of my choosing because I was too busy reading things that my professors thought I needed to read. But a few weeks ago I picked up a book I bought a few months ago because it was recommended to me by my ex-roomie Connor, “The Adventures of Kavelier and Clay”.

This book is amazing; it’s a fun, interesting, and emotionally (at least for me) rigorous read. Not only is it exceptionally well written but it involves my new-found obsession, Prague. The author is Michael Chabon who also wrote “Wonder Boys” which was made into a movie by the same name as well as winning a Pulitzer Prize (Chabon received a Pulitzer for Kavalier & Clay as well). Everyone should read this book.

Now I’m midway through “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson, the well known travel writer. The book is a “short” overview of scientific study from the formation of the universe to how man became man. I think the best part of this book is Bryson’s vaguely British style and sense of humor; he uses words like curmudgeon a lot and makes liberal use of dramatic understatement. Everyone is is not reading Kavalier & Clay should read this book and afterward we all will trade.

Buy A Short History of Nearly Everything

Buy The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay