Russ Hall

I’ve been working on a website for this guy, Darren, over the last couple weeks. He’s a real estate investor and has enlisted me to handle some of his website materials. I’d like to take over all of the web-based functions of his business, but I think I have to prove myself first. Anyhow, he just signed me on for the second phase of the project, so things are looking up. It’s cool to have some work that I enjoy and adds a nice supplemental income to the day-to-day gig. Eventually, it’d be cool to be able to just do this and set up meetings and work whatever hours I want, but I’ve got a long way to go. I’m still trying to learn PHP to the point that I can code HTML, but it’s been kinda tough to sit down and really focus on it during the week. Maybe I’ll be able to set aside some reading/learning time soon. Then, I need to start working on learning some particular programs and maybe work on my Photoshop skills. It’s not enough to retire on, but it’s good for now and I can do it in my free time. With the weather warming up, I’m trying to think about other ways to make some money to waste on stuff I don’t need and add to the savings. Maybe a painting franchise?

I just picked up a new desk from Target. I need to get another chair to throw towards it so that I can start using it. Or, put a new one here by the computer desk. If you’ve never been to my room, and you’re confused, my apologies. But, I was cleaning up and moving some stuff from this desk over to the new one and I realized that I have so many writing utensils. I’ve got like 3 packs of colored pencils, a big box of crayons, I just bought a new pack of 20 pencils because I’m sick of using pens all the time. Sadly, I have a ton of pens! It’s ridiculous. I talked with Kristin about this and she said she has about the same problem. How does this happen? Where do all of these random pens come from? How do they pile up so much? So, I’m trying to waste them away one at a time. Or, I guess, if you want a pen, just ask and I’ll give you one of the ones I don’t like. This was going to be a post more about organizing, etc. but I decided just to bitch about how many pens I have and how I dislike that. Ha!

I uploaded some pictures of my recent food endeavors in the photo album. I made a taco pizza the other night and made another batch of fried rice and general tso’s chicken this evening for supper. Everything turned out pretty well…

In the future, I’m going to try to find a better pizza dough recipe, but would stick to the same general toppings and recipe otherwise. A little tomato sauce to hold stuff down, topped with some browned & taco-seasoned meat, sliced jalapenos, a layer of mexican cheeses thrown in the oven for about 10 minutes to brown the crust and melt the cheese. Then, I put on diced tomato chunks, shredded lettuce, sliced black olives and some more cheese. I popped it in for about 5 minutes to warm everything up and then topped the finished product with some sour cream and chopped cilantro.
I’m so pleased with how my chinese food came out tonight. For the general tso’s (first attempt), I got to use up some stuff I’ve had in the kitchen. I cubed some chicken breast, dipped it in flour and fried it. Then, I tossed it with some Blazin’ sauce from BW3 for the heat and some Island Mango sauce from World Harbors (about halfway down the page) for the sweet flavors.
The rice I used is leftover from the Chipotle rice recipe that I cannot perfect… but that’s a discussion for another time. Anyhow, I cooked some bacon (no pork) and set it aside. In a separate pan, I browned some diced onion and set that aside. Then, I cooked some scrambled egg and tossed that in the aside bowl with my onion and and bacon before heating a portion of frozen peas and carrots. With all of that under control, I tossed my cold rice into the pan with the bacon grease and started frying it to warm it up. As it got close to being finished, I tossed in some light soy, mixed it up and then added everything I had already cooked for the rice. Cooked it all together for a little while then served it up. Delicious. Happy.

Recently, at least three different groups of people (read: white college kids) have gotten in trouble for their controversial parties “celebrating” Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. The premise for these parties was dressing for every black stereotype while eating and drinking stereotypical black food and drink. I’m not sure about the musical selections, as those weren’t discussed in any of the articles. The usual response from those who were in trouble was that the parties were “not intended to be offensive to anybody.”
A couple questions beg to be answered. Were the parties offensive because of what the participants were doing or because they associated it with MLK? Why is it funny to joke about stereotypes sometimes, but completely offensive other times?
I hope that people are offended because of the association of these things to King and not just because of the nature of the actions. Just doing a couple quick searches will net you results that could also be considered. How offensive is it to have a party based on income level? How offensive is it to have an event based on social status? How offensive is it to have a gathering demeaning to a particular gender? How offensive is it to celebrate a nationality with drinking? That’s right, St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated every year by people of all ages donning green garb and heading to the closest Irish bar (or one that’s faking) to drink some green beer. If you check out the Wikipedia article, you’ll find St. Patrick’s Day was not created for people to drink debaucherously. Shocking, I know. Throughout those pictures/albums, you’ll find that it’s not just white kids participating in the parties. Blacks, asians, and hispanics also join in on the fun. So, maybe it is possible that it was just harmless fun throughout all of the parties.
Maybe people are getting too worked up because people are playing up to stereotypes. I wonder how much trouble Dave Chappelle gets into for his portrayals of blacks in comedy, or how much trouble Carlos Mencia gets into considering ALL of his comedy is based around racial stereotypes. Some would say that Chappelle has a “right” to do so because it’s his own people that he’s mocking, but is it not still perpetuating the stereotype? How many people laugh at things just because they’re offensive without really being malicious? People laugh at dead baby jokes, but don’t necessarily encourage the genocide of infants.
I would contest that, although there are definitely exceptions, stereotypes originate somewhere. Further, there are worse stereotypes that people could get upset about. It’s not like these kids were portraying all blacks as angry young men who tote guns and rob white people (common entertainment stereotype). They were having fun with some beer, some food and some friends. Lastly, if you check out the original article I read about this at BlackintheCity.net, you’ll see Paul’s comments:

I don’t know what to say about stupid drunk college kids doing stupid drunk things. Except that maybe we need to rethink the admissions standards at some of these colleges. Without a doubt these are stupid drunk frat guys being stupid drunk frat guys.

Or, the comment that says “these students let the world know they’re racist…prospective employers will see this video and not hire them because of it.”
I’m upset because Paul is so bothered about this, but he calls out “frat guys” twice. Nowhere does it say that these are even related to a fraternity. Further, what’s to say that all members of the fraternity participated? Would members of black fraternities participate in this? How can you condemn an entire group of people because a few people did something you don’t agree with when most of the people weren’t even involved? Additionally, I don’t think the claims of racism are entirely correct. I don’t think these kids ever made comments or references to the fact that they are superior to the black population.
In the end, I think these kids were just trying to find an excuse to have a party and probably should have thought it through a little better, at least before posting the pictures online. It was probably in poor taste to link the event to MLK, but not necessarily to have the party in the first place.
I really tried to be as objective as possible and I’m guessing this will probably stir up some interesting debate/conversation. But, please try to keep this as respectful and educated as possible. In closing, I’ll leave you with this quote from Mr. Chappelle’s “For What It’s Worth” stand-up special:

Nigga, if you don’t like fried chicken and watermelon, there’s something wrong with you!

Here’s my problem: I’ve got a ton of open space, but nowhere to work on anything in my room. I have a small corner desk for my computer, but I don’t have anywhere that I can sit down and read, write, plan, doodle, etc. I’m just not comfortable sitting cross-legged for long periods of time and I’d prefer not to just prop my work up on my knees whilst I sit against the wall. So, I’m in the market for a new desk. Sadly, I’ve got one at Mom’s house, but the weather hasn’t really been cooperating for a moving trip to Ashland and back. Beyond that, I also need to find a new love seat/couch/big comfy chair to play video games from. There are some nice pieces of furniture available at Powell furniture, that I kind of dig, but I think they might be out of my price range. Oh well, I don’t really want to accumulate too much big stuff if I’m going to move south sometime within the next 8 months.

This song has become the most overplayed 80’s song in recent history. I previously liked it, but now I have images of stupid people singing it for karaoke, obnoxiously drunk people belting it out at the end of the night at a bar, and people who think they’re hip because they’re such a fan of 80’s music, but couldn’t tell you another Journey song or 4 other bands from the 80’s. Ugh. Ashland BW3 & Scorcher’s, Columbus McFadden’s, I’m looking at you. I blame Laguna Beach. Find a new cliche.

This has to be the cutest thing I have seen in forever…
Sleepy Sloth.

When I was in Baltimore last year working, I saw a couple billboards in Baltimore that made me crack up. First, is a billboard for paternity testing that says, “Am I the Daddy?” I’m surprised conservative groups aren’t raising a stink about the implications that people are being careless and promiscuous to the point of needing DNA testing to determine the father of a child. I also like the word choice–good job identifying your target market.

The other billboard is from a national campaign that targeted lots of major cities around the country for Aqua Teen Hunger Force featuring the mooninite, Err, flying the bird. The hand isn’t visible because of a CENSORED banner and the only other words are “[adult swim]” in the bottom corner. That makes me wonder who they really wanted to send the message to. Were they hoping people would search for “adult swim” in the attempt to figure it out or just maybe create a buzz with people asking each other if they saw the crazy new billboard downtown. Either way, kudos. I wonder if these were in Boston…

What a random topic, eh? Judd asked me how many spaces I put after periods when writing. After some discussion about which is correct, he asked me to look into it a little more and to defend the 2-spaces method since we both agreed that it’s probably the better choice. Traditionally, two spaces has been the accepted option, but recently there’s been a definite shift towards single spaces after a sentence. I was trying to figure out why this was and found a decent website discussing the issue from May 1999.
Basically, the only reason we were using two spaces after a period previously was due to the fact that typewriters were lame and the single space didn’t do a good enough job of showing the break. Monospaced fonts will have that problem. Additionally, the fonts used in most word processors today are serifs and blend together, so they accommodate single-spacing better. Worse, in the web world, browsers ignore double-spaces from the coding and many programs automatically adjust documents to single anyway.
Ultimately, this is not something worth getting up in arms about. Judd said the main reason he argues for the double-spacing so much is because professors at AU demanded it in their reports. So, if your audience wants double, go double. If you need length in a document without any additional info, go with the two spaces. If you’re writing for the web, don’t bother double-spacing.

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