An Actual Email I Just Sent.

For the last twelve hours or so I have been listening to off-and-on Youtube audio live streams of telephone calls between the Y’all Qaeda militia idiots in Oregon and some crazy person named Gavin Seim who seems to be a go-between of some sort for the FBI and also an aspiring D-list celebrity. This is an email I just sent to the girl who told me about the live streams:

… those idiots from last night are livestreaming again with (apparently) the only guy left and I can't stop listening to it! Why did you tell me about this?! I’m addicted.

So the holdout is named "David". On the phone are the same people from last night (Gavin and Monica) and "Mark the FBI Agent" is on a separate phone with David and we can't hear that.

The conversation is interesting because Gavin & Monica sound like Christian AM talk radio hosts. David, apparently is some kind of Jewish (which Gavin & Monica were surprised to learn and immediately cut all the Jesus talk when he said that) and "Mark" is this demon-like character haunting the background who we never hear.

David is clearly unhinged and his sense of the world is as influenced by the X-Files reruns as it is the Constitution. He's anti-Capitalist, pro-America, anti-American government, anti-oil, pro-green energy, anti-Obama, pro-Islam (somehow??), anti-taxes, pro-Syria (??), pro-UFOs, anti-immigrant (which sets up an oddly incongruous kind of xenophobia). To my mind, he actually comes off more sympathetic than Monica & Gavin (they are craven people and they are going to be famous in their circles after this).

If we do not produce a play about this, someone else is going to.

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An Actual Email I Just Sent.

I just realized something. Yesterday in my class I showed a Youtube clip from the end on the movie 2001. It was the part when Dave is turning off the computer HAL and HAL is getting dumber while Dave is doing it. HAL starts to talk all slow and weird because Dave is killing its brain. The essay they read for homework referenced this scene and I thought they should see it because 18-yr-old probably have never seen 2001.

Well something didn't sit right with me about the clip. I had watched it previously (I thought), but something seemed different. I didn't remember HAL singing exactly that way as he died.

This is the clip we watched.

I just realized what HAL is singing, it is Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". I Rick Rolled my own class.

Next Monday I am going to use this as a teachable moment to demonstrate the dangers of trusting what we find on the internet.




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An Email I Sent to My Parents about the Weather.

You've probably seen some odd weather reports out of Southern California the past couple days, so I thought I would clarify what has been going on.

Friday we had a perfectly warm and normal summer day, which is to say that some freeways caught on fire. Saturday morning I drove a friend to the airport and I passed in and out of two different micro-climate rain storms on the way. In LA we call those "free car washes". Then it dripped and trickled throughout the afternoon, temperature in the 60s, but then the cloud cover moved off and it was in the 70s around midnight.

This morning was insufferably thick and humid in a way that reminded me of Boston or New York in the summer. That's when I ran all of my errands because I am, apparently, not very bright. The later afternoon was quite nice and a little breezy even. Then about 6:15 this evening the sky opened up and we have had a sustained downpour to such a degree that water is up to the curbs because the sewer grates are clogged because we use them for trash down here.

The weather report says that when I wake up to walk to work in the morning it will be about 70 with a 50% chance of rain, so it might be a perfectly nice day or a thick and wet one, but there is no way to know right now. I used to work with a guy from Nebraska who used to make fun of the "weather" here, but even he texted me earlier to ask what exactly is going on.

I'm not complaining, all this is still better than snow or mosquitos, but I can imagine it might seem confusing if you're anywhere else, and I just wanted to say that it is indeed confusing, even to those of us who are here.

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Happy Friday.

This is a lightly edited version of an actual email I actually sent this morning.

Hello and good morning and happy Friday!

I am not one of those people who usually says things to people like “happy Friday”, but today I think I am in a “happy Friday” kind of mood.

Normally I don’t like to say it because it feels to me like saying, “Our lives are so dreary and unfulfilling during the week that we have to pretend that each Friday is something to be celebrated because it allows us two whole days of not-soul-crushing-tedium and that is the best we are willing to hope for out of life anymore” and that just is not how I feel about life and I have had those kind of jobs (and lives) and I am simply not going to do that ever again, thank you very much.

But today I am in kind of a happy “happy Friday” kind of mood. The kind of mood that is all like, “Hey, isn’t it great that we get a couple of days to chill out and just focus on the things in our lives that bring us the most joy? And how great is that?”

This week started out pretty tough for me, but now I am feeling a bit better about life. I still have a ton of work to do and my weekend is going to be packed to the gills, but I think that if I hunker down, I should be able to do what I need to do. There is something nice about having alot of work to do and also the ability to do it.

Also, I’m at the point in the semester when I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I enjoy school, I really do, but I am looking forward to the summer. I think I will enjoy the routine of working full-time again and then having virtually nothing else I am required to do past 5 o’clock. I am looking forward to being able to make a little bit of money, but also being limited in how much time I have to spend that money; I won’t be able to, say, go to Spain for two weeks. That makes me sad, but it also means I will just have to find smaller adventures and I tend to enjoy those a lot anyway.

Also, I have a longer story I think I would like to work on over the summer and I also will have the time to run more (I haven’t had time to run in weeks) and maybe even go on a some hikes! I haven’t hiked in ages.

Anyway, I am in a “happy Friday” kind of mood. I hope that the world is too.

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