It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: The Nuclear Option

Here is our ongoing segment known as It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green. Which is ripped from a Kermit the Frog song. Again I am not the green energy consulted that also goes by the name Kevin Doyle, I'm just the guy who gets his emails.

Mr. President

Forget hybrid cars, for get plug ins like the Chevy Volt, and hydrogen cars? The way of the Hindenburg. The future sir is in the nuclear car.

I know what your thinking, how do we get a nuclear power plant under the hood of a car? Well actually we don’t have to, but if you wanted to all you have do is as Willy Wonka for his shrink ray, which was our initial plan, but Willy Wonka’s mother obviously never taught him to share things.

The way we do it is we created our own shrink ray and we shrink people down to miniature size. Once they are miniature then they can make mini-nuclear reactors. Now I understand that the basic laws of physics would say that this is impossible but so are giant bugs and superman but they exist. So from now on when presented with facts in the physical realm do not trust the physics you have come to believe in over the 40+ years of your life, look to the super secret physics of the US government. Trust me you don’t want the headaches.

Now after these mini reactors are constructed we simply work the reactor into the working parts of an automobile. I’m sure it’s not to hard, if we can do it with submarines, aircraft carriers and robotic soldiers then we can surely fit it into a Ford Focus.

The benefits of placing miniature reactors inside cars would be complete independence from Middle Eastern oil, and Midwestern Ethanol (and we can finally turn the Midwest into a giant replication of Tele-tubby land like we talked about).

Unfortunately there are some downsides, minor ones, but downsides all the same.

Through testing we have found that the effects of a transition to nuclear powered cars would be; approximately 12 million nuclear explosions per year due to car accidents, the eradication of all gas station hot dog stands, and due to the inability to reverse the shrinking process countless lives of mini-people will be lost.

Though these may seem as detriments to moving towards nuclear powered automobiles, we believe that no price is too high for energy interdependence and that you sir are the only person to lead us to the nuclear wasteland, I mean promise land.

I Want My Money Back

I’m not one for using lyrics to express myself but in this case it’s just to hard to pass up. In the words of Ben Folds, give me my money back, give me my money back.....you bitch.

I Want My Money Back.

It’s been a little over a month since my classes started, and having taken a few tests and read a few books I think I can give me overall first impression of my classes. This is also my final full semester at NU (I have two summer sessions left) so naturally there is going to be some NU grumbling (A certified grumble has been spotted!) is to be had. Onward comrades!

Global Climate Change

It was this class, Dinosaurs or Natural Disasters in the running to fill my Natural World requirement. Natural Disasters was a class of 250, and Dinosaurs I have heard is not what it is advertised as, so I went with Climate Change.

So far I’m happy with my choice, knowledge has been learned and the reading easy. All in all I have received the education I expected; a bunch of facts I could have learned via a few hours of internet research. Go NU!

Spanish

I took Spanish instead of testing out of Italian (for my language requirement) because I thought it would be better to walk away with an understanding of Spanish rather than bullshitting my way into two years of Italian on my transcript. I knew it would be hard but I figured it would end up being a fruitful choice, and so far it has been, very good choice on my part.

That being said, is it the best use of my money towards learning a language? Probably not. For the amount of money I spend on tuition I could probably spend a month or two in a Latin American country and I would walk away from it with a much better understanding of Spanish. Or I could go to a more cost beneficial program (compared to the cost of tuition) at a Language Institute.

If it wasn’t for the language requirement for a BA at NU I would not be taking Spanish, but this was the best use of the 4 credits I could find.

Contemporary Black Politics

I went into this class thinking we would start off by talking about local black politics (Chuck Turner and the like) and the up and comers in national African American community (Jesse Jackson Jr, Cory Booker, Michael Steele) and the effect of Barack Obama on the political process, especially for African Americans. Sounds like an interesting class right? That’s what I thought and that’s why I took it.

Well instead it has turned out to be a history class, centering on slavery and the struggle of African Americans from Reconstruction to Civil Rights. All well and good but the class is call CONTEMPORARY Black Politics. For those of you who may be confused about it’s definition, I present it to you now.

Contemporary
adj.
1. Belonging to the same period of time: a fact documented by two contemporary sources.
2. Of about the same age.
3. Current; modern: contemporary trends in design.

No where in the definition does it say history.

Now I understand that one needs to put the current political climate into a historical context but do you really need to do so for a 2 months (effectively half the scheduled class time)? If I wanted to learn about slavery and the struggle for equality I would have taken a History of Black Politics class. Instead I took this class because I all ready know about slavery, W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglass, Malcom X and Martin Luther King. What I wanted to better understand is the current state of African American politics the post-Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton era. I want to talk about my local African American community, something I encountered on my last Co-Op (btw I will post something soon about the BRA) and the future of African American political thought process.

But know I am learning about slavery for the 5th time in my life.

Senior Capstone

Going into this class (a graduation requirement mind you) all I wanted to do was write a 25 page paper on a Political Science topic of my choice. I wanted to research something that interested me and end up with a sizable piece of writing in a field I could head into in the future.

Yes I was asking for a large paper and mundane lectures, you would think I would get what I wanted.

What I got was group led class discussions, a bunch of mediocre to terrible books to read, and a pair of book reviews. No 25 page paper.

Quick rant: What is the benefit of group projects. I get that in real world working on a team is common but that doesn’t translate well to group projects. In the real world there is a designated leader who gets paid more and has the qualifications to delegate tasks. In a classroom setting there is no incentives for one to be the leader, and those who do step up are hardly ever qualified. There I said it.

Back to our regularly scheduled program.

In a normal class room setting this isn’t a bad thing, but when the discussions come from all corners of the Political Science spectrum and your teacher is versed in only one of them it can end up being vague and misrepresented. Couple that with the fact that there are 65 Political Science majors in one room open to discussion there is going to be some problems.

First you have to understand that Political Science majors go on to be, among other things, lawyers, policy wonks, politicians and professors; all people who carry large opinions and enjoy discussing them (or in most cases, shouting them). So yes this class has been a bunch of know-it-all students shouting unfounded statements at each other while the professor tries to manage a volume of students that is too large for each subject.

For once in my life I am not one of the top 5 talkers in the room.

*****

Overall I’m disappointed, I expected more from this semester. So far all I have come away with is a bunch of facts I could have found from looking in a geology book and an understanding of the Spanish language I could have gotten (and then some) for cheaper by living in a Latin American country for a few months. I’m starting to think Will Hunting was right when he told that asshole from Harvard that he could get the same education with a library card and late fees.

That being said I should have seen this coming. I can count on one hand how many classes that I consider to have gotten my money’s worth out of. Not to mention I consider College to be a game in the way that High School was a game, just that this time I have to pay $40,000 a year for it.

Only In New England

Would a day like today in February be considered fairly warm but in August it would be considered fairly cold. Six months apart and in the later days of their respective extreme seasons (winter & summer).

What I Am Reading: A More Perfect Constitution

I have since finished this wonderful piece of work (I kid) read the review here.

With the completion of that awful book comes the start of Larry Sabato’s - A More Perfect Constitution. Besides being the book that my group project is centered around I actually was looking forward to reading this because I love “What If?” situations and revising things (usually things that don’t really need revising). What I am no looking forward to is the class discussion about this, come to think of it I hate every class discussion in that class.

Funny story. So in my Capstone class we have to do a group project on a range of topics, and I chose to be in the American government group, for obvious reasons. Within my group we had to pick a concentration, I chose state and local government for obvious reasons. Slight problem; my professor has a doctorate in state and local government.

Bigger is Better

As you can undoubtedly tell by visiting the blog, a column has been added on the left and the blogging area has increased in size as well. Also my last five tweets have been added. Let me know if you are having problems viewing the blog by either emailing me or just leaving a comment on this post.

And as always if you put your email in the little box up in the corner and hit submit you will be emailed each days posts in news letter format every night.

What I Am Reading: All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well

When I get down to just John Lennon you know it’s time for me to start another book. Next up is Tod Wodicka’s book (get ready) All Shall Be Well; and All Shall Be Well; and All Manner of Things Shall Be Well. The name isn't long enough right? That combined with the cover and the Harvard Bookstore recommendation is the only reasons why this is getting read.

Quick Ponder: Is it wrong of me to go to the Harvard Bookstore, read the recommendations, take them seriously and then go buy the book at Borders because I have an employee discount? I just feel like I am stealing.

Anyway this book looks, writing wise, to be interesting (i mean the word “mead” is used in the first sentence of the description). But the best part is the actual cover, which looks like it's straight out of a Monty Python and the Holy Grail interlude, equipped with a long rambling text that makes no sense. Because I can not find a picture of the copy I have any where on the Internets I have attached a picture of me holding the book at the Harvard Bookstore. Yes that is my famous red jacket.

What I Just Read: Women

I think what Bukowski meant when he wrote the book “Women” was that all Women should not read this book. Within the first ten pages the C word is uttered, and within the first 50 he has sex with countless woman. No good will come from a woman reading this book, they will immediately think that all stereotypes about men are true and become feminists. As a man I will make sure that I never recommend nor allow a female I know to read this book, because it will ruin all men.

That being said this book is about a man who for years (before the book was read) had to hit on women to have a chance. Now at the age of 55, with his sudden popularity thanks to the publishing of his books and poems he call him for one night stands, send him naked pictures of themselves and fly thousands of miles just to spend a few nights in his bed. Needless to say the old man can not handle this and with his lazy, go with it personality, he just accepts the twenty somethings when they want him and moves from woman to woman without a thought about there feelings. The thing is, he isn’t proud of himself like most men are, at times he feels like nothing, like an old perverted man.

The book at times feels like just an endless drunken one night stand with a bad hangover the next morning, with the only thing changing in his life is the women (hence the title). To be honest I did not enjoy this book as much as I thought I would, in the middle I started to get irritated by the mainstays in his life and mad at him for not taking hold of his life (though it all came together in the end).

If you are a young male, read this books, it may put your drunken sex filled life with some perspective. If you are a woman just forget I wrote this blog entry, better yet just ignore ever this tag.

Next Bukowski book is going to be Factotum, but I have decided that I will never read two books by the same author in a row, so I don’t tire of him or her. So Factotum will have to wait a little while.

What I Just Read: Fixing Failed States

In the immortal words of Denny Green "they are who we thought they were!" Just as I stated before this book proved to be predictable and if nothing else just a grouping of ideas and forward thinking policies that we all know but refuse to implement.

The problem with the world today is that too many states have governments that have failed them because of their inability to provide a stable government that is free of corruption and is geared to a capitalistic working environment. The remedy calls for the consolidation of aid agencies into one forward thinking cabal that seeks to implement stable governments that are accountable to the people and provide a market and public financing.

Basically make the third world like the first world, and do it through investing infrastructure and good government.

And how is that a new idea?

All in all this book presented nothing new to me and did so in a frustrating format that could have been scaled down to a magazine article and probably would have reached a wider audience because of that.

I'm going to go read something interesting and informative now.

Dirty Old Prophet

The rest of us would be all right until the poor learned how to make atom bombs in their basements.

- Charles Bukowski Women

On Haircuts

While sitting getting my hair cut at Floyd's today I came to the conclusion that if I am going to spend a decent amount of time in Boston I think it may be a good idea for me to find a specific someone to cut my hair. Ever since leaving for Belgium I have encountered the issue of having my haircut by someone who is not Tony. I have had people who don't speak English, to a guy who just gives you the regular "I'm a white boy" haircut, to a guido who cuts well but almost takes your ear with him, and then there is Floyd's where you can have the same person twice and they wouldn't know any better.

And each time I'm scared I'm going to walk away with an aweful haircut (so far it's about 50/50). So today I officially announce my search for a new barber. It's been a long time coming, and looks to be no small feet in finding one I like considering how I haven't found one as of yet. But I think I'm going about it the wrong way, simply hitting the first place I see. I need to do some research.

All I want is a small shop with a few stools, a TV, moderately priced, and for the barber to be over the age of 40. The last one is the key, because I do not want anything in common with the person cutting my hair. To me getting your haircut is a moment in life when you reflect on things, it's like being in the shower or at the dentist; you sit there in silence and think. I don't want to talk about where I go to school, the Red Sox, Barack Obama, the weather or any of that shit. If I talk about anything with the guy, other than hair, I want it to be about my family, only because I want to have frequented the same place long enough that the guy knows my family.

And above all I want to walk in, sit down, and get my haircut the exact way I like it without having to show him pictures, explain what shampoo I use or how I comb my hair (for the record I don't). I want this guy to know my hair, and just do what needs to be done.

If your interested or have a suggestion, reply to this post.

What I Am Reading: Women

I have since finished this book, for the review navigate here.

Next up on the never ending trail of books is Women by Charles Bukowski. When I was purchasing Post Office a couple weeks ago my coworker Steve voiced that Women was his favorite book by Bukowski, I vowed to make it my next Bukowski book. Well as it would happen someone else decided they wanted to read Women as well, so I had to wait a week to purchase it. Now I have it, and I'm reading it, even though I have a boring book to read as well.

As I have stated before Bukowski is the dirtiest of the dirtiest old men and he gets his dirtiest when it come to talking about females, so I can only imagine how dirty this book is going to be. Stay tuned for the review.

Oh I also have purchased Factotum (another Steve favorite) and Ham on Rye which Worth commented on when I was purchasing it. So it appears as if Bukowski may be going the way of Vonnegut, that meaning I will probably end up purchasing and reading ever piece of his published works when it is all said and done.

It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green: Green Gyms

Here is our ongoing segment known It's Easy (but probably not probable) Being Green. Which is ripped from a Kermit the Frog song. Again I am not the green energy consulted that also goes by the name Kevin Doyle, I'm just the guy who gets his emails.

Mr. President

Americans are obsessed with staying in shape, as you well know, Mr. President by your countless hours at the gym each day. Millions of Americans hit the gym daily like you do, burning up calories, through many forms of exercise. Which is why we have come to you today with this report, on the benefits of the stationary bicycle.

You've seen it sir, in many of the post-apocolyptic movies out there, citizens left with no power, and what do they do? They hook a stationary bike to a turbine to run power to the light bulbs (that flicker constantly). I see you nodding you head over there sir, you can see where we are going with this. We want you to put one of these bicycles in the Oval Office, and stream you 2 hours a day over the web!

No? No camera? Not in the Oval Office? How about in Rahm's Office? O.K. I guess the White House gym makes sense as well, but sir it's just that we foresaw you meeting world leaders perched atop the bike. Vulnerable? Hell Putin takes his shirt off and flexes his pecks every time he has a meeting with Angela Merkel. The Fact that Germanic - Ruski relations have suffered is irrelevant sir. The point is that you are losing the war on machoness to a former member of the KGB!

No sir I'm fine, I....I....I just love this country so much and I can not stand to see you play second fiddle on the scale of manliness to a damn Russian sir! But I digress.

What brings us here today is the effect that these machines could have on the energy market. With our history of dieting and exercising we believe if deployed correctly these machines could account for 1/3 of our energy use (or they could barely cover the energy cost of each gym, you have nerds to crunch those numbers and come up with an exact number).

It's up to you sir to get Americans to use these. We were thinking maybe we would slap your name on it because people will buy any piece of crap with "Obama" stamped on the side of it. Maybe name it the Obamanator, and have you hawk it on an infomercial with one of those guys who yells and gesticulates a lot. You would be good at selling things to people wouldn't you sir? Tell them a whole bunch of really cool things about the product that may or may not be true. Travel the country and show them how it works. Yeah I can see it.

What I Just Read: The White Tiger

This book is, as my manager at Borders put it today, "sneaky good". You do not realize how well written and entertaining until you are 100+ pages in and your realize you are over 100 pages in and you hadn't realized it. For myself a quality of a good book is if I am not constantly looking at the page numbers counting down until I am done. Most books I read I read for what I want to call a "Conquest". I read them because I feel as if I need to read them, be it because I bought them with the intent of reading them for pleasure and now I just have to read the book because I own it or because I want to know whats in them (i.e. John Lennon) or because it appears to be a book everyone should read (any Shakespeare). The White Tiger may have started that way but it finished as an overall enjoyable book.

In more detail, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga was the perfect book to follow my reading of The Post-American World. It was a narrative on what India is like for the lower castes of society and how regardless of Globalization and the "Rise of the Rest" it takes a serious and dedicated individual to advance themselves in society. The White Tiger touches on everything in Indian society, from poverty to pollution to forced prostitution to government corruption to outsourcing to the emergence of a modern India. All of this through the lens of resourceful and determined young Indian named Balram in his writing to the Premier of China.

A thoroughly enjoyable and well written book.

Next up will be Women by Bukowski but I am forcing myself to read my Captone book before I read Women but it just does not look appetizing at all. We shall see. Expect a post on Women before weeks end.

The Underlings Guide to the ABC's - Hh

Another day, another new feature. I'm sorry my dear readers for putting all these features on you. I'm going to slow down eventually, make some of the features staples, some of them will fade out, maybe stick to a schedule. We'll see, but for now random acts of grumbling will continue. Onward!

We are calling it (queue Carl Kassel's voice) "The Underlings Guide to the ABC's". It is quite simple really, I pick a letter and tell you the definition. They will be short to start, they might get longer.


First up the Letter H!

The sideways I and the tall n. It seems like it does not have its own identity. Socially awkward? A difficult time holding his own with the rest of the crowd?
I myself do not have an h in my name, could have done with one though. A humble guy h is, no loner though, can be found hanging out with s and c and a vowel or two.

Stop the Presses!

Yes I realize it is 4:21 AM. Disregard that.

I hereby revoke my support for Governor Deval Patrick. I know this may come as a blow to some of you but I just can not support a man who is going to such barbaric ends to deal with the current economic crisis.

In such times as these is it prudent to tax something that is so dear to many? I can't afford a $0.08 increase on my Coke! Is this man crazy? You know how much that would cost me a year?!?!

All I'm saying is if Mr. Patrick happens to find a whole 2 liter of Coke spilled on his desk Monday morning, I may have had something to do with it.

We must stop this war. The War on Coke.