I remember my first thought when I heard that a movie was being made based on the Disneyworld/land/whatever attraction “Pirates of the Carribean.” To put it briefly, I thought, “Wow, that’s going to suck.” I didn’t understand how a movie based on a ride like that could be anything but craptastic. As you might imagine, I didn’t see it in theaters, but did get around to watching it when it came out on DVD, where, much to my incredible surprise, I found the movie to be smart, fun, and incredibly enjoyable.

Last year some time, before the sequel came out, I was driving back to drop a friend off at her office after we’d gone out to lunch. She asked if I thought the sequel would be as good as the original. Nope, I sure didn’t. And, once I got out to see it, I found myself agreeing with my own opinion.

So, beginning at 8pm, people (“lemmings”) will be able to get in line to see the third Pirates of the Carribean movie: “At World’s Fart.” Or something. Anyway, the movie is being panned in the press (big shocker):

The entire franchise seems on the verge of collapse, propelled to construct ever more grandiose flights of fancy. Without those sequences, there would be nothing there — but a movie cannot exist on rollick alone (not by the second sequel anyway). I kept flashing to the image of a doomed mariner furiously bailing out his boat as it sinks inexorably beneath the waves.

The problem is not so much that the energy — or the invention — flags. But the audience may. Screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio have been working overtime. Having fabricated an entire supernatural pirate mythology from odds and ends (a theme park here, a Flying Dutchman there), they now feel duty-bound to lay it all out for us as they go…

…We critics routinely shortchange such wonders, but blockbusters thrive on spectacle, and any movie that can produce a 50-foot woman almost as an afterthought has no worries on that score.

At the same time, it’s easier to warm to the vaudevillian Hope-and-Crosby-style comedy director Gore Verbinski keeps trying to smuggle in under the radar, in dozens of throwaway sight gags, madcap verbal non-sequiturs, and slapstick set pieces. Depp is his principal ally, of course, the agent of chaos swanning his way through the heart of the whole shebang.

It’s really too bad this wonderful anarchy is swamped by the movie’s noisy inconsequence. Fully an hour too long — 2 3/4 hours! — and emotionally frigid, “Pirates” is scuppered by nothing so much as its own inflated self-importance.

While I try not to place too much emphasis in what a “critic” thinks, my own experience with this franchise seems to support the notion that this film is gonna blow. Pirates — the original — was one of many movies which should never had any sequels because there was no way possible for the sequel to be better than, as good as, or only marginally “not worse” then the original. And now, what we have, is a great film dragged down by sucky ones.

Bah! I say, bah!

You know Apple has dominated the world when you go to breakfast at International House of Pancakes and abbreviate it “iHOP.”

See, last night I went to the carwash up on York Road and washed my car.

And y’know what people say about washing your car only to have it rain the next day? Yeah, well, since this was the first time in, hell, probably a year that I’d washed it, I was really expecting to see a hurricane come rolling through Baltimore County today.

So, after three days of working twelve-hours, I marked today, which also happens to be the last day of the spring semester’s term (I finished my finals last Thursday, and yet only one prof has so far posted grades), as the start of my Great Job Hunt TM.

I started by registering on Monster.com. I’m wondering how smart an idea that was: I just got what seems to be a mass-generated e-mail requesting I come to an “interview” in Texas tomorrow morning (and not Texas, Maryland, which is conveniently located two miles away, but big belt buckle Texas, located half a fucking continent away). Except, it sounds more like an “investment opportunity”, so I’m a little suspicious about how effective a job-searching tool Monster.com might be.

Anyway, back to writing cover letters and submitting resumes.

Here’s to more spam employee e-mails.

I remember, far more years ago then I care to admit, walking across the deck of the USS Constitution. I’ve been aboard the Constellation, of course, but it was there on the deck of “Old Ironsides” that I looked to the sky, my eyes guided by the towering masts, and as I looked from port to starboard, fore and aft, I thought about what the crew of these old wooden ships risked to set out among a hostile environment for the purposes of commerce, exploration, or defense.

I don’t think I’d heard of the Cutty Sark before today, or at least not more than briefly as a sound clip somewhere. How sad and tragic that this relic of a bygone era was the victim of what is being investigated as a deliberate act of arson.

After her launch, the Cutty Sark had seven good trips to China in the 1870s. It would go out loaded with alcohol, and come back carrying more than 1,400 tons of tea. On one famous occasion, it lost its rudder going through Java’s Sunda Strait, but using an improvised replacement was still only a week behind the first ship back to London.

But on the eighth voyage, they discovered that all the tea had been loaded on to steam ships, which could make the return voyage in less time because they went through the Suez Canal, which sailing ships could not do because they needed the head winds. After the captain found out that he did not have a cargo to take home, he died, and the first mate, James Wallace, took over as captain.

Captain Wallace later threw himself overboard after his crew went on strike and the ship was becalmed in the Java Sea.

But when the Cutty Sark went into service carrying wool from Australia to the UK in the 1880s, she set a the world record by making the trip, round the Cape of Good Hope, in 72 days.

In 1895, she was sold to the Portuguese. She saw service during the First World War, when she was very badly damaged.

In 1922, she ran into a gale in the English Channel and had to dock in Falmouth. A retired shipowner, Wilfred Dowman, spotted her and decided to preserve her for the nation. He paid £3,750.

Thankfully, the Cutty Sark Trust (the group overseeing the museum ship’s refit) isn’t willing to give up on the ship: “The Cutty Sark has meant so much to so many people, that whatever it costs, and however long it takes, we will put her back together.”

I just wish I knew what motivated people (like the arsonist) to destroy these monuments to human history. Could have been worse, though — they could’ve torched the Victory.

Russia and Estonia — at Cyberwar!!!!

Kind of feels like one of those things you’d see in a cheesy science-fiction movie, right?

A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, is causing alarm across the western alliance, with Nato urgently examining the offensive and its implications.

While Russia and Estonia are embroiled in their worst dispute since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a row that erupted at the end of last month over the Estonians’ removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet war memorial in central Tallinn, the country has been subjected to a barrage of cyber warfare, disabling the websites of government ministries, political parties, newspapers, banks, and companies.

Russia accused of unleashing cyberwar to disable Estonia

· Parliament, ministries, banks, media targeted
· Nato experts sent in to strengthen defences

Ian Traynor in Brussels
Thursday May 17, 2007
The Guardian

Bronze Soldier
Bronze Soldier, the Soviet war memorial removed from Tallinn. Photograph: Timur Nisametdinov/AP

A three-week wave of massive cyber-attacks on the small Baltic country of Estonia, the first known incidence of such an assault on a state, is causing alarm across the western alliance, with Nato urgently examining the offensive and its implications.

While Russia and Estonia are embroiled in their worst dispute since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a row that erupted at the end of last month over the Estonians’ removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet war memorial in central Tallinn, the country has been subjected to a barrage of cyber warfare, disabling the websites of government ministries, political parties, newspapers, banks, and companies.

Article continues
Nato has dispatched some of its top cyber-terrorism experts to Tallinn to investigate and to help the Estonians beef up their electronic defences.

“This is an operational security issue, something we’re taking very seriously,” said an official at Nato headquarters in Brussels. “It goes to the heart of the alliance’s modus operandi.”

Alarm over the unprecedented scale of cyber-warfare is to be raised tomorrow at a summit between Russian and European leaders outside Samara on the Volga.

While planning to raise the issue with the Russian authorities, EU and Nato officials have been careful not to accuse the Russians directly.

If it were established that Russia is behind the attacks, it would be the first known case of one state targeting another by cyber-warfare.

Estonia, a country of 1.4 million people, including a large ethnic Russian minority, is one of the most wired societies in Europe and a pioneer in the development of “e-government”. Being highly dependent on computers, it is also highly vulnerable to cyber-attack.

The main targets have been the websites of:

· the Estonian presidency and its parliament

· almost all of the country’s government ministries

· political parties

· three of the country’s six big news organisations

· two of the biggest banks; and firms specializing in communications

It’d be cool if they could fight the war in a big first-person shooter video game. They could enlist players from across the world and the cyber-victor of the game would win the cyberwar. I’d fight for Estonia, because the commies are evil!

Impossible, of course: my hair is far too short to be let down.

Since the end of August, I have been both a full time employee and a full time student. With the exception of the two and a half weeks between the end of the fall semester and the start of the January minimester and spring break, I haven’t had much of a break from the unrelenting schedule. And, of course, for one of those few weeks I wasn’t going to class, I was working more to help boost my bank account.

So now classes are over. My final semester as an undergraduate is behind me. And, as you might imagine …

… I want some free time.

There’s a practical side to having a reduced schedule: by keeping three or four weekdays free (working those nights, of course) for various job-search related activities (like, hopefully, “interviews”). Of course, I’ve still got bills to pay, so I can’t get too lazy.

But I can be a little lazy.

(Right after I work twelve hours tomorrow).

When I think of tomorrow lastnot to picture the drunk kid standing in the driveway peeing on his dad’s Porsche while eating a slice of pizza and trying to yell at his friends not to eat the entire pizza before he got back inside.

Thursday, when I returned to Towson in the afternoon for my 4:00 Film & Lit final, I stopped by Dr. Ballengee’s office because a little bird whispered in my ear that she’d been grading our finals from that morning. Indeed she had, and I was surprised to see that despite my lack of studying, I’d gotten a B on it. I’d done much better on the midterm, but Dr. B said she understood that I’d blown studying for the test off — Myth, although an English class, is still a gen-ed. I hope she read the sincerity in my voice when I told her that it was the exam schedule that prevented me from studying for her class: I’d spent all of the previous day (most of it, anyway) preparing for my History of the English Language final. Passing or failing Myth wouldn’t affect my graduation, but it was my second favorite class of the semester, and I regretted being unable to focus more precious studying time on it.

I had a stack of index cards that was, well, pretty damn thick, covering everything from the most miniscule to the most important topics and digressions from class. In addition, I calculated what grade I’d need on the final to pass the class: the final was the third of three tests, each worth 29% of the grade. Class participation and homework counted for the remainding 13% of the grade (Although I expected to recieve the full 13 out of 13, when doing these calculations, I gave myself a three point penalty, just to be on the safe side). Having recieved checks on the first two homework turn-ins (we only turned them in at the test for that session), and having missed only one class the entire semester, what really hurt me was the first test: I scored 61 (17.69% of the total class grade).

It was the phonemic word translations that hurt me so badly — don’t knock me until you’ve tried learning the phonemic alphabet. Not only is it fucking difficult, but it varies from dialect to dialect. You’ve literally got to know the sounds you’re making when you’re pronouncing a word: when you say “woman” and “women”, are you concious that it’s the “wo” you’re pronouncing differently to make that plural distinction?

Of course, by the second third of the class, we’d finished with phonemic translations, and were deeply involved in the history segment of the class. On that test, nearly everyone missed the question about the “Danelaw”, which seems bluntly obvious: the land in England occupied by the Danes. I got it right, and earned a much improved test grade: 87 (25.23% of my grade). I actually found out what I earned on that test before the class: I stopped by Dr. Duncan’s office to find out if we would be getting the tests back that day, and found him entering the scores into his gradebook. I literally danced a jig (a quick, arm-flapping, stupid looking one) in the second floor hallway of Linthicum.

So, with my figures reflecting a total earned of 53.92 points out of 71 total (pre-final), I knew I could score a D on the final and still walk away with a (very) low C. But I didn’t want to just scrape through the class, I really wanted to ace this thing. And so I studied that stack of notecards, and read the chapters of the books, and even went back through my notes, just in the off-chance that something might stick from that which hadn’t from the cards. And I neglected studying for Myth — I could’ve gotten a 40 on my Myth final and still had a C for the class (although my final grade hasn’t yet been posted, I’ve got myself calculated at an 86% for MythMyth to do well in History of the English Language, and I walked out of that final, that oh-so-precious final, confident that I’d done well.

At the end of the final, I wrote a note to Dr. Duncan, asking him to kindly e-mail my grade, if it wasn’t too much trouble. I was one of the first students to fold the test shut and walk to the front. When I handed it over, and verbalized my e-mail request (which he denied, stating the grades would be posted soon), Dr. Duncan asked me if I was graduating (I guess he forgot when I got buzzed and wandered in to his office with the same question). I suppose, if I’d been unsure of how I’d done on the test, I could’ve said “Maybe.” As in, “Maybe, if you throw me a bone.” But I didn’t. I said “Yes.” Because I knew I’d aced the fucking test.

And every hour I’ve been home over the last two days, I’ve logged into Towson’s Online Services to see if my final class grades had been posted. Even “Tradition and Form”, a class for which I took the final last Tuesday, hadn’t had grades posted since the last time I’d checked, late Saturday afternoon. When I got home from a particularly grueling night of work, a “New Message” on MySpace from one of my friends in that class excitedly informed me that Duncan had posted out final grades — she was quite relieved to have passed, and I confidently logged into the website.

The only question, for me, was how well did I do on the final? Well, to earn a C+ for the class (which I did!!!!), coming from where I was (grade- wise), I had to have between 24 and 26 points — meaning, from my admittedly rough calculations, that I scored between an 85 and an 89.

While History of the English Language was the class I put the most effort into this semester, it will also be the class I’ve earned the lowest grade in. However, I can honestly say that an “A” earned in a class not nearly this difficult will not fill me with nearly as much pride as that C+ I studied my brains out for. (And when students talk about “judicious allotment of limited study resources”, this is the shit they’re talking about).

Your Summer Ride is a Jeep

For you, summer is all about having no responsibilities. You prefer to hang with old friends – and make some new ones.

A quiz that gets me … !

(And so does the post title, of course – hah hah!)

Man Crushed By Flying Cow.

A man was killed after his car collided with a large cow, sending the creature flying into the air before it landed on the car rooftop and crushed the driver.

Police said the 26-year-old Broome man was driving along the Exmouth-Minilya Road near Carnarvon, in Western Australia, on Wednesday night when his Ford utility smashed into the cow, which was standing in the middle of the road.

“It is believed that the cow had been thrown onto the roof of the car and dented it on the driver’s side, crushing the car on impact,” WA Police said in a press release.

Fuckin’ bovines.

So, in addition to being like, INSANE, Geisha’s actually a talented artist and gifted me with this oil painting of Kurt Cobaine that was her first realization that she had artistic talent. She randomly showed up at my apartment Wednesday night while I was (I swear, only) taking a break from studying. I like to think of it as my “I’m confident you’re going to graduate” present.

So I don’t quite know where I’m going to hang Kurt. Right now he’s up on my living and dining room wall between my bookshelves. Kurt kind of freaks me out. It’s like he’s judging me. “Almost one in the afternoon and you’re sitting around watching movies and you haven’t even showered?”

He’s certainly not going in my bedroom.

So. Shrek 3 tonight is a graduation present from Geisha, but Kurt is the gift that will be freaking me out long after I’ve forgotten about Shrek.

… but I don’t have a hangover. Anyway, as a graduation present, Geisha‘s treating me to this tonight:

(Hey, if someone can tell me where the music from the “rich spoiled princesses” bit is, I’d be appreciative!)

I (kind of) wish I was drunk writing this (mostly because Islendingabull said “My favorite posts of yours are when you’re blastered”*), but I guess I’ve been developing an alcohol resistance after all, because I’m so not drunk (nor was I when I left the bar two and a half hours ago).

The May Baltimore Blogger Happy Hour turned out to be a small, rather intimate affair in a college bar that was actually quite … deserted. Seriously. We had the whole place to ourselves. It was pretty great, and you suck for not coming.

(more…)

My coursework will be finished by the end of the day, and I could not think of more fitting words than these by Meredith Minter:

And it came to pass,
Early in the Morning toward the last day of the semester.
There arose a great multitude smiting their books and wailing,
And there was much weeping and gnashing of teeth,
For the day of judgment was at hand.

And they were sore afraid, for they had left undone
Those things which they ought to have done,
And they had done
Those things which they ought not to have done
And there was no help for it.

And there were many abiding in the dorm
Who had kept watch over their books by night,
But it availed them naught.

But some there were who rose peacefully,
For they had prepared themselves the way
And made straight paths of knowledge.
And these were known as the
Wise Burners of the Midnight Oil
And to others they were known as Curve Raisers.

And the multitude arose, and ate a hearty breakfast.
And they came to the appointed place
And their hearts were heavy within them,
And they had come to pass,
But some to pass out.

And some of them repented of their riotous living
And bemoaned their Fate,
But they had not a prayer.

And at the last there came among them
One known as the Professor; and they feared exceedingly.
He was of the diabolical smile
And passed papers among them and went away.
And many and varied were the answers that were given.
For some of his teachings had fallen upon fertile minds..
Others had fallen among the fallows.
While others had fallen flat.

And some there were who wrote for one hour; others for two;
But some turned away sorrowful, and many of these
Offered a little Bull
In hopes of pacifying the Professor.

And these were the ones who had not a prayer.
And when they finished, they gathered up their belongings
And went their way quietly, each in her own direction,
And vowing each unto herself in this manner:
“I shall not pass this way again.”

I am very grateful to Towson University for allowing me the opportunity to finish my degree. While it is impossible to name everyone I feel a debt of gratitude towards, I would like to take this opportunity to thank, and these in no particular order –

Dr. Amy Fink; my advisor and most-awesome adjunct professor lecturer, Prof. Jack Carneal; Dr. Jan Wilkotz; Dr. Evelyn Avery; Chair of the Department, Dr. Edwin Duncan (thank you for your help when I stumbled into your office half drunk and afraid I wasn’t graduating, you’ve been an awesome prof and I wish I’d been a better student); Dr. Jennifer Ballengee; Dr. George Hahn; Dr. Paul Douglas; Dr. John Mancini; Prof. Les Potter; Mary and the rest of the ladies at The Brickstreet Cafe; Dr. John Flynn, Joe Davis, and the staff at Linthicum 207; Cathy at the Graduation Office; the afternoon bartender at Bateman’s; Monica Lynch and Brenda, my Brickstreet bitches; Group H from Intro to Classic Myth (I stuffed my shirt with fake boobs for you people!!!); Ruth; Ashley, Jamie, Carrie, and the rednecks from History of the English Language; everyone who was, is now, or will ever be an English major or professor at Towson University.

I’d also like to thank the kind woman in Towson’s Academic Advising Center who I was required to meet with upon being readmitted. After taking a look at my not-so-hot records, she reassured me, “It’s too bad they don’t put wise heads on young bodies, right?” I wish I remembered your name. As I recall it was long and started with a ‘z.’ You made me feel welcome and that I had a great pair of semesters ahead of me – as a matter of fact, I’ve had a great year, and I want to thank you for starting me out on the right foot.

Mucho gracias to Anonymous Coworker, Broadsheet, and Zenchick for career assistance, including, but not limited to resume building and (hopefully soon) practice job interviews; to my blog readers and friends who have offered advice, guidance, experience, and support. In particular, I’d like to thank my platonic girlbest friend Geisha for forcing me to be sociable on occasion.

Most especially, thank you, Mom & Dad and Little Sis.

It’s been a long road, getting from there to here. Ten years ago (how long that was back then, how short now), when I graduated from Atholton High School, I walked across the stage at Merriweather Post to recieve my diploma. If you’d told me then that it would be a solid decade before I earned my college degree, well, I don’t quite know what I’d've said. Maybe, if I could travel back in time, and beat some sense into myself, this day would’ve come six years ago. But I can’t travel in time, can’t beat the crap out of myself, and I do have my whole future ahead of me.

On my To-Do-List For The Rest Of My Life:

Immediately: Get Drunk
This Summer: Get a Job (not involving pizza delivery)
Before Hell Freezes Over: Get a Girlfriend/Wife

See you in the future, people. First, I’m going to get myself DRUNK (and you’re welcome to come along).

And, finally, (with overdue apologies to Standing Cheese for stealing his “thing”): I like being a college graduate.