The semesterly ritual of textbook purchasing is often a time of reflection for me. I mean, what else do you do with all the time you spend standing in line to purchase the overpriced (their fault) and underused (my fault) textbooks required by collegiate studies? This year was a veritable smorgasbord of ponderment. I managed to push my way through my fellow students and against all hope, locate my textbooks, only to be greeted by a line winding itself around half the bookstore. Plenty of time to think. My first thought was how carnival-like the atmosphere was. Must have been all the clowns standing around. My second thought was how much I hate standing in line.
Whenever I find myself waiting in line the mental image of prisoners in the gulag waiting for their gruel comes unbidden to my mind. Perhaps these images are a throwback from my childhood. To my memory, my elementary school experience consisted of three basic activities: class, recess, and standing in line to go to either of the former. You would stand in line to go inside to begin the day. You would then line up to go to recess. Then to go back inside? Get in line. If you want to get a drink, there’s the line. Lunch lines. Bus lines. Lines to go to assemblies. You get the picture. I wonder if I spent most of my childhood in line. Thus, with all my years of experience getting in line, I have had the time to observe certain aspects of line waiting, which I will share in a series of posts. In addition, feel free to share your own observations.
First, the amount of satisfaction you get from getting to the front of the line is not equal to the wait, but rather the amount of people waiting behind you. As I was griping about the line at the bookstore when I got back to my apartment, my roommate Mark commented to me that when he went to the bookstore earlier that day, the line had been even longer. After explaining the length of the line, he remarked bitterly “and then almost nobody got in line behind me.” He didn’t gripe about the wait, he griped about the lack of people behind him. Then I realized how much satisfaction I had felt at the register as I looked behind me at all the people waiting in line. I have noticed this same feeling while waiting in line at movie premiers and concert ticket lines. It’s true.

Tomorrow: The Economics of Line-Cutting.

It has come to my attention that there is a phenom rapidly overtaking the pre-pubescent community. This, I believe, is a very serious matter and must be scruntinized. Its affects in the near future will be vast and nigh unshakable. This rage of which I speak is directly related to underage drinking. The big brothers at the brewery are no longer satisfied with the midnight run to the state liquor store on the eve of that pivotal legalizing birthday, they have found a sneakier (if you will) approach to “slamming” this young generation of wanna-be boozers: the “Energy Drink”. Designed to . . .well, I have no idea what its original purpose was. But it’s become Everclear for 12 year olds. It used to be just a few brands and only one flavor but now they range into depths of monumental proportions. I have seen a plethora of young’uns binging on these oh-so-flavorful liquids. They are literally convincing themselves they are “smashed” and using it as an excuse to exploit their prematurely developed bodies at parties. If anyone at all thinks this pleasing or that any of these drinks actually serve a purpose to humanity other than its degredation please let me know as I am struggling to understand the vast purpose of “Boo-Koo Light” and “Chronic”. Which apparently has a such a negative affect on one’s person that it’s labeling reads, “Do not consume if you are on medications, under the age of 12, or pregnant”, which is followed by, “May become psychologically addicting.” Oh cool! Dip me up some of that, because I’d like to slip into what’s termed as the “caffeine shakes” or have my heart race at marathon-like speeds. It’s good to know that the future is in the hands of such astute minds. May the police officers of the next generation start giving out tickets that read, “You moron, energy drinks are not alcohol, you are not drunk, save yourself some embarrasment and go home now so that you are not late to 1st period English.” Until then I suppose the woes of the teen will remain a mystery and those who fall into that blessed legal age bracket can enjoy their good old reliably depressing alcohol and those of us who do not can stock up on “sixers”, and proceed to party like the “Rock Stars” we aspire to be.

I read this article earlier today on the Las Vegas Sun website and was a little disturbed about the article as a whole. First of all, let me say that I don’t condone the assassination of world leaders as a viable foreign policy. Robertson is a media personality, and media personalities depend on strong opinions to polarize their listeners and create an audience, which is exactly what Robertson was attempting, I believe. Regardless, such comments could inflame an already touchy political situation, and are probably not in the best of judgement.
That said, let me turn to the part of the article that really bothered me. For an individual who advocates freedom of speech so vigorously, The Reverend Jesse Jackson’s comments concerning censorship were somewhat ironic. It irritates me that he would have the audacity to advocate the denial of first-amendment rights to anyone, no matter how inflammatory the individual’a comments might be. The Reverend’s comments send a clear message: freedom of speech should only be given to those who agree with his views and ideas. This comment betrays the very ideals Jackson claims to uphold. If those in power were to apply this same attitude of censorship to Jackson, he would have been silenced long ago. Jackson’s comments beg the question “does the Reverend still read his Bible?” Perhaps a refresher on the golden rule would do the Reverend Jesse Jackson some good.

Politics has always attracted more than its share of pretentious blowhards and precocious wordsmiths. However, the emphasis on eloquence has proven to be a two-edged sword for some. Recently, there has been a lot of focus on “Dubya” and his somewhat unique vocabulary. His attempted verbosity has given us such gems as “Pledgealleigance (pledging your allegiance to one nation under God),” “disassemble (that means not tell the truth),” and “contamidated.” (For more on Dubya’s slippery grasp of the English language, click here.) But before there was “Dubya,” there was Dan Quayle.
Dan Quayle served as Vice President from 1989 to 1993 under President George Herber Walker Bush. During his time in office he was the source of numerous comments of an inadvertantly humorous nature. Some were observations that can only be described as painfully obvious (”A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.”), while others were so logically convoluted that one could only guess at his meaning (”We don’t want to go back to tomorrow, we want to go forward.”). In any case, he has given me and many others many a laugh at his expense. Because of this, I feel that naming him a Towering Intellect is well within the spirit of this site. Dan said it best: “People that are really very weird can get into sensitive positions and have a tremendous impact on history.” How true that is.

I’ve been talking to one of my coworkers about going fishing for a while now. He’s been talking a lot about this pond near his home that is almost literally crawling with bass. And not just any bass, either. Big bass. Bass so big that grown men are intimidated by them. Or so I was told. So yesterday I finally decided to go to this pond and see for myself.
We pulled up to the fishing hole to find that during the night, some evildoer had stolen the pond and replaced it with a filthy, smelly, muddy puddle with an equally muddy and smelly island in the middle. Turns out that some construction workers had driven a backhoe up to the culvert where the water ran out of the pond and cleared out the debris that had allowed the pond to form. Props to the helpful construction workers who singlehandedly destroyed a thriving aquatic ecosystem to say nothing of my afternoon.
So we decided that since we were already there, and there was still some water, we would go fishing anyway. We blew up the rafts and threw them into the puddle and shoved off to begin our fishing adventure. However, as we tried to paddle, we began to realize that the water was so thick with weeds, it was like trying to paddle a raft across your living room carpet. Less effective. As we examined our plight, we looked across the island and realized that the other side of the puddle was actually fairly weed free and somewhat deeper and we began to muscle our raft across the weeds in that direction. Much to our dismay, however, we soon found that the island actually cut off any access to the other side of the puddle via water (or weed as the case may be.)
We boldly decided to take the overland route, and my boat buddy, another coworker of mine, jumped out of the raft onto the deceptively solid-looking shore of the island, immediately sinking up to his knees in the reeking mud, which released a foul rotten-egg odor as he broke through it. I’m not sure if the sick feeling that came over me at this point was because of the horrible odor or the realization that I was spending my afternoon in a filthy stinking swamp. In any case, my boat buddy managed to extricate himself from the slimy mud and clamber back into the relatively safe confines of our raft. Needless to say, we wisely decided to stay on our weedy side. My other coworker who had been so enthused about this fishing hole dragged his raft over the mud to the other side. He told me afterward that the smell was so bad, he actually threw up. That’s dedication.
Back in my raft, we started to fish, hoping to salvage some part of an increasingly doomed expedition. I was so focused on catching as many weeds as possible that I failed to note the quickly darkening skies above us until some raindrops hit me. I looked up in time to see a furious downpour sweep across our little muddy puddle, drenching us in our small unprotected rafts. The rain was cold, and adding insult to injury, it rinsed a lot of mud off of my boat buddy into the bottom of our raft, where it ran to my end, allowing me to partake in the fun.
At this point, we had finally had enough. After paddling our raft around the weeds for a little bit longer, we pulled it out of the lake and waited by the cars for our fellow fishermen. We piled the muddy, smelly rafts into my nice, relatively clean car and went home.
Jack Handy once said “If you ever drop your keys into a river of molten lava, let ‘em go, because man, they’re gone.” I think that this is true. To this useful advice I add my own: “If you’re going fishing and you show up and the lake’s disappeared, just go home.” Trust me.

I never cease to be amazed at the things people will do for free stuff. But allow me to begin with a disclaimer: I believe that awards that are offered to incent desirable behavior or to recognize remarkable achievement are an excellent idea. However, it appears that somewhere down the line, someone discovered that if free stuff will incent people to good behavior, it would incent them to gross behavior as well. For example, look at the success of “Fear Factor.” In this TV show, individuals compete for large sums of money by eating or doing absolutely disgusting things. We, the audience, are grossed out (and engrossed, apparently) and the winner gets their free stuff. This idea is taking root elsewhere. In fact, this article covering a “Fear Factor” knockoff at QuakeCon is what got me thinking about this topic initially.
This evokes the question “why is this popular?” Perhaps it is the same motivation that makes us rubberneck by a bad accident as we stare in morbid fascination at the twisted metal and shattered glass, with a half hope, half fear that we will see a body. Maybe it’s a cultural trend. Perhaps humankind just has a strange attraction to the bizarre and disgusting. I don’t think so, though. I think it’s an attempt to recapture childhood.
Children seem to have an obsession with grossness. I can attest to this on two different counts: one, I was a child, so I know. Two, I spent this summer volunteering as a scoutmaster, and I discovered that virtually all 12-year old humor is based around grossness and “your mamma” jokes. That said, children therefore look for grossness for their entertainment. They poke dead things with sticks. They play with bugs that any normal person would be repulsed by. They laugh uproariously at bodily functions. And most importantly to my point, they try to get each other to eat gross things. Who hasn’t been offered a quarter to eat a bug as a child? I am convinced that I spent a great deal of time trying to convince my classmates that I was offering them a great deal to ingest that bloated drowned worm. I mean, a whole quarter went a long way back in those days! Now that we’re older and (supposedly) wiser, the stakes have risen to much higher amounts, but we still like to see our peers do gross things. I guess some things will never change.

I moved into my new digs today, and I must admit, it’s nice to be back in “the bubble.” I have no doubt, however, that I will find plenty of things to comment on. This is the bubble after all. Probably the best part about being here is that I no longer have to commute. There’s just something about sitting in a traffic jam with the realization that you are absolutely powerless to change the situation that really grates on me. I have had time to observe an interesting phenomenon, however, during my long sojourns home after work. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the ubiquitous Jesus fish that graces the back of many a jalopy. I’m also fairly confident that you have seen the Darwin fish that has arisen to join in combat with the Jesus fish. I don’t want to get into the complex tale of these two car-bumper belief billboards and the evolution thereof. (for those of you who are dying to learn more about this epic battle of belief symbols, here is an excellent article that was published in the New York Times a couple of years ago.) Rather, my interest is in furthering the tale of the evolution of the Jesus fish.
I believe that the day of the Jesus fish is at an end. What’s more, I think that the Darwin fish has fallen prey to the very theory it represents. Not to put to fine a point on it, a more advanced species of car-decoration has evolved. With the current war in Iraq, there has been an outpouring of support for our soldiers serving in harm’s way. As part of that support, concerned citizens have been placing ribbon-shaped magnets on the backs of their cars. These ribbons come in various hues including the standard yellow, the patriotic red, white and blue, or even green and white (MIA-POW). Their presence on freeways across America is undeniable. This brings me to my point: these magnets happen to be in the same shape as the Jesus fish. I think that we have seen an evolutionary leap from the generic, pointed-nose chrome Jesus or Darwin fish of days past to this colorful, easily removable (there’s evolution for you!) symbol of patriotism.
My only question now is what does this mean? Is this a harbinger of things to come? Are we going to see a radical shift in belief systems leading to a new “religion of patriotism?” Only time will tell. However, should a revolution occur, remember that you heard it here first.

I have recently been introduced to what I believe could be a solution to the problem of illegal immigration. Any man or woman of any nationality desiring to enter the country should be presented with the option to serve in the United States military to effectively “earn” citizenship. Those that choose to serve would then be granted permission to enter the country as a citizen, those that do not would be denied that privilege. Before they ever set foot on American soil they would be providing a tremendous service to the United States. In addition these foreign soldiers would be earning scholarship money from the government to attend college after their tour of duty, again serving to benefit the country. I can see no negatives, its brilliant. Who do I need to write to see this idea deliberated in congress?

It has occurred to me that the very best advertising comes from alcohol companies and automobile manufacturers. For example: who could forget Louie the disgruntled lizard, and his bitter hatred for the Budweiser frogs (and didn’t we all hate the frogs?) And those who have seen the TrunkMonkey campaign for Suburban Auto Group have to admit that they are a work of singular comedic genius. In fact, this car commercial got me thinking about this topic in the first place. These are just a few of the humorous, innovative marketing ideas that these two industries have spawned. Now, I understand that these are two sectors that rely particularly heavily on advertising, but of all the industries to be put next to each other in advertising prowess, I think it’s funny that it would be drinking and driving.

I’ve neglected blogging a little bit the past couple of days because I’m a bit daunted by the title of my website. With a name like “ToweringIntellect,” you can’t really type junk and call it good. I originally thought that it would be really tongue in cheek, but I’m starting to realize that even the humor has to be pretty good. Therefore, any suggestions and comments are welcome when it comes to improving the content of my blog. And compliments are OK too.
In any case, I do want to nominate my first Towering Intellect in this blog. I was surfing the web yesterday and came across this flash game. As I worked on potting the little pixelated balls into their electronic pockets, I realized that it took somebody some serious time to come up with this game. Multiply this by hundreds of applications (see AddictingGames.com), and you get a feel for the huge amount of effort that goes into helping people waste time on the internet. I don’t know who these people are, but I want to give them props for giving me an alternative to solitaire when I want to waste time on my computer.