April, 1998

2 April - The New Revolution

dannyman cleans house, shakes things up, the dawn of the Third Epoch is now!

3 April - Dawn

10 April - Chain saw theft ends rampaging deer terror

After terrorizing a small Norwegian town for weeks, a buck deer went too far: he stole a chain saw from Olav Haereid's front yard.

15 April - It's a Small World After All!

dannyman discovers Hash Wednesday, and other, more mundane stories.

17 April - Laziness

dannyman evinces one of the great virtues of a computer programmer.

23 April - Redemption

Dining Services restores a bit of faith.

24 April - Shorty

Alliance '98, building up to Finals ...

Segments

Fri Apr 3 01:17:37 CST 1998

I have recently begun to think that by seperating my life into segments, I might be able to better keep track of things, or at least more easily appreciate contrast. Various schemes have been kicked around in my mind; say summarizing the day's event's on index cards, until I ran out of a pack of index cards and started another. Well, I've come up with an easily-implemented solution, at least for now, that the journal could be seperated into monthly segments ... this way, it is easier to look back over a longer period of time - for readers and for myself.

This also relates to the writing process itself: the journal is something of a pre-writing process, or the part where you gather raw material to craft into later masterpieces, or experiment with different ideas. It's an incubator, or the grounds where writing ideas get fertilized. Well, I've been doing that for years now with the journal, to the point where I've become a rhetoric major. It's time to mix the pre-writing journal pages with month-like summaries, folding ideas into the years in a hierarchical fashion. I'm really not sure where exactly this is going, though I've got some ideas in my head, and time will iron things out.

The idea though is, I sometimes say some things in my journal I'd like to elaborate on ... this new hierarchical order is something that will encourage this sort of thinking. Well, that's the hypothesis anyway. Stay tuned.

The Dawn of the Third Epoch

Awards

Irritating Awareness of the Month (12 April)

Sexual Assault Awareness Month - also known as "April" ... you know, a few years ago, a lady by the name of Maria Pia Gratton was raped and murdered on campus. Immediately after, and to the present day, the residence halls have been on lockdown - basically, the main entrances are locked after 8PM. And freshman have been forced to attend rape prevention workshops - basically, to reinforce that no means no and that you should be just a wee bit careful of who you trust with what - street smarts, I reckon. Lots of people are kind of annoyed at having to take these workshops, since they themselves like to think that they're are a little different from Gratton's killer, who jumped in front of a train not long after committing his heinous act. But there's also the sort of anti-anti-male backlash. On the newsgroups, there was a post that read;

Welcome to UI. Please indicate your gender;

1. Potential Rapist
2. Potential Victim

I saw a poster that read Getting Raped is like having your head go through a windshield, only afterwards you live in fear of half the human race. I think to myself Having your head go through a windshield is like getting raped, only afterwards you're paralysed from the neck down for the rest of your life. Or how about Being murdered is like being raped, only you're dead afterwards. ... I mean, if we're going to have Sexual Assualt Awareness Month why not have Murder Awareness Month ... I mean sexual assault isn't even glorified on TV like conventional violence is, and it doesn't inadvertently encourage false sexual dichotomies.

Worst Book I've ever been forced to read of All Time of the Month (13 April)

Josephine Tey's The Daughter of Time. Imagine, if you will, a historical account of Richard III of England, vindicating him of the popular notion that he murdered his nephews in a tower and all, that can, and is, summed up in a few pages near the end of the book. Instead of writing a nice, short treatise, an author decides to make it into a mystery novel about some bloke lying in bed at the hospital coz he broke his leg, who is so bored about staring at the ceiling that he is glad to stumble on to some peculiarity of a picture that his ditsy, but kindly actress friend brings him to help alleviate his boredom. After reworking an interesting mystery over several times by repeating the same facts over and over and over again, as if for effect, the novel ends up being critically acclaimed and the History Department, I guess because the novel rips on historians so much, finds the book sufficiently profound to assign its students taking one of its survey courses to relive the excruciating tedium and write papers on it. Due Tuesday. At least I finished the book. Ryan liked it. I told him that he was a sick fucker. Then I told him I was joking, coz Ryan's really a very cool guy. Ben and Chris agree with my prognosis though. Reality gains credibility in this concurrence.

Local Festival of the Month (23 April)

Band Jam kicked ass! It was this Sunday on the South Quad, featuring several local bands, among them the Small Mediums at Large, the Viper and the Viper's band, Jenny Choi, and a bunch of other things I can't remember now. It really rocked.

Underpublicized Holiday of the Month (23 April)

Earth Day. It was the 22nd. Who knew? Krissy wished me a Happy Birthday in good fun, coz someone else had earlier wished her likewise. Then someone suggested a more likely interpretation of things ...

Tools of the Month (23 April)

The Comittee for the Moral Defense of Microsoft, or some such group. There was a picture of these guys in the DI holding up signs in the Microsoft font, saying things like Keep Janet Reno out of my Computer! Frankly, I'd rather see Janet Reno in my computer as opposed to Bill or that fucking paperclip in Microsoft Word! Meanwhile, too, I've heard rumors that Microsoft has a new campaign where they're planting favorable editorials and stuff in the media in order to give the impression of a grass roots campaign. This actually sounds a bit clever to me - they need to respond to the ever growing threat us free Unices present somehow. It's not like they can buy out or otherwise intimidate the hacker community, or even flood the market in competing with a free OS. I also saw a post on uiuc.general today about some articles revealing Microsoft Scholars - people payed by Microsoft that sit on various purchasing committees for University computing equipment. Anyways, let's just say it strikes me as a bit queer to see the terms Microsoft and moral sharing space somewhere ... who knows if these Moral Defense tools aren't paid by Microsoft as well? I actually kind of doubt it. It's a little too obvious, even for Bill.

Typo of the Month (24 April)

From Allenotes of 17 April: 7-8:30 PM, for Those Who Love Them A workshop for partners and supporters of sexual abuse and assault.

Dumb Poll Made Better through Democracy of the Month (30 April)

Hank, the Angry, Drunken Dwarf tops the polls of People Magazine's 50 most beautiful People of the Year poll. I think it interesting to note that Michelle Kwan is in fifth place, and you can't even click her name. Way to go girl! It is heartening when pretensiousness gets taunted.

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