Applying for graduate school is a helluva lot of work. Jeez. At least I have plenty of time on my hands to get things handled--things like writing four different essays for ONE application.

Bob Dylan's new album is fantastic.

brett at 09:43 AM on August 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

昨日背中を切られた夢を見た
女は笑いながら言ってた
「お前なんか死ねばいいのに」

もうこれ以上　何も壊れない様に
今を強く抱きしめた

きっとそうなのかも知れない
女の言う通りかも知らない
「錆びたナイフは痛いでしょ？」

もうこれ以上　何も失くさない様に
今を強く抱きしめた

季節はほら見たことかと言って
あたしの前を通りすぎていった
「全部お前が悪いんだ」

もうこれ以上　涙こぼれない様に
今を強く抱きしめた

今を強く抱きしめた

brett at 11:34 AM on August 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

And the award for most asinine concept of the week goes to... Lisa Zentz of Waverly! I know it's only Monday, but there's no way anyone is going to top her letter to the Journal Star:

In the ’70s, when oil was a fraction of the cost it is today, the U.S. government insisted that Americans conserve and reduced the speed limit to 55 mph.

She goes on to advocate that the speed limit on the interstate should be once again reduced to 55 m.p.h.

Nice.

brett at 10:47 AM on August 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

I just got an advance of the new DJ Shadow album, Outsider, and this thing is absolutely gold. Shadow has always been one of my favorites, ever since Endtroducing and Preemptive Strike, but this album is nothing like those two.

Shadow has really put together a masterpiece, an album full of southern crunk stars and east coast hyphy rappers--two groups that most Shadow fans would never expect him to work with (David Banner, E-40 and Keak Da Sneak all appear on this one). But not only does he work with them, he puts together some of the most creative beats of the year without trying to be too eccentric about it.

As one reviewer put it, this is "the rare sound of an artist making the kind of music he wants to hear."

I'll upload some mp3s later.

From Shadow's own mouth:

Last summer was really crazy because Keak Da Sneak had this song out called “Superhyphy” that was just so anthemic in the Bay. I was at Summer Jam, which is the big live show for KMEL, and when he came out there, just seeing 30,000 kids go stupid like that was just so ill to me. I’ll never forget that. And that was just a week after we recorded “3 Freaks.” Then October came around, I gave it to the radio station and they just flipped for it. So for the first time in my life, I’m getting radio play. One thing led to another, and from that song, people started knowing who I was. People are like, “Oh, that’s a slapper. We should do something.” It was just a whole reintroduction to my own area.

This has gotta be on my top 5 list.

Update: DJ Shadow f. E-40 - Dats My Part.mp3 ... man this beat is off the hook. Listen for the Mario Bros. coin sample.

Man, I would kill for a Lil Jon / DJ Shadow collab album. Shit would be money, son.

brett at 08:51 AM on August 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

It's all about focus. School may not be in for me, but I'll be working. This weekend I shall begin drafting my statement of purpose for graduate school.

Probably would be a bit easier if I knew my purpose.

Ugh.

Can't wait to get started on this.

brett at 01:49 PM on August 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm tired of the antagonistic relationship that drivers have with those of us who are downtown bikers. That said, I hate the cars. I don't have much to write about it, but I'll provide some snippets from today's Journal Star letters to the editor and the subsequent comments:

You know, for all the complaints and whining I've seen in this newspaper, over the past few weeks, about bicycles (from drivers), and about drivers (from cyclists), even after searching the accident reports, I've yet to see even one accident involving a bicycle!

...

Bikes are a summertime nuisance. Once winter kicks in all the overaged Lance Armstong wanabees in their bike shorts will soon dwindle and disappear. Most of the ones I see out during the riding season are trying to impress us all with their expensive bikes and outfits (Have'nt seen any in business suits). Nice to know taxpayers are supposed to provide the means for a two wheeled version of "Project Runway".

...

I'm blown away the perceived threat drivers here see in bikers and the intolerance they have of them for not obeying laws. Calm down fellas. In any car vs. bike situation, car is going to win, bottom line. What are you so worried about? What are you so scared of if you have to slow down a bit because a biker is in front of you? What are you so worried about if a biker runs a red light--pedestrians do it constantly. Get over it. If you can't handle driving downtown, maybe you shouldn't.

...

Why do so many people rant on bikes? I don't even ride, but good grief already! I urge you to spend one day this week closely paying attention to the road rules and how many cars follow them (I mean truly follow them--not YOUR version of them). Turn signals? not so common. Stopping in or past the crosswalk? Very common. Rolling "stops?" Nearly always. Yielding and merging properly? Hard to find. Stopping at red lights rather than speeding up when it turns yellow? Get my point? Unless you obey all of the traffic rules yourself, you have NO RIGHT to whine about others breaking the rules.

Blah. I hate drivers. OK not really, but, yeah. Bikes are good, cars are bad, come on.

The last word goes to Sydney Brown:

I pay all the same taxes as you, Derald E. Gottsleben. I could argue, since I put more miles on my bike than my car, that I ought to pay less in car-related taxes, but I don’t. I just pay ’em because good, safe roads for everyone who is trying to go somewhere, with whatever vehicle they opt for, are in all our best interests.

In fact, because I and many others use our bikes, you have fewer autos in your way on the street, less pollution in your air and more tax money for fixing streets your heavy vehicle helps ruin faster.

Amen.

brett at 10:25 AM on August 24, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

長谷川君？読んでるの？ずっと話してないよ。これ読めばメール送ってよ。アドレスはwertz.brett@gmail.com.　ひさよもメール送れよ！！返事をずっと待ってんだよ！

brett at 07:54 AM on August 23, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

So there's a bit of construction going on in the alley behind my place.

Now if only I could figure out how to convince these guys to run some of that fiber optic cable up one floor to my apartment. (As always, more at Flickr.)

brett at 05:17 PM on August 22, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

School started today--but not for me!! Ha!

Kind of weird seeing everyone come back into town. I mean, I know I'm not much older, but just the fact that I'm done makes me feel older. Very bizarre. Everyone looks so young.

Also: I managed to snag a set of season tickets for the Fall football season. Holla.

brett at 02:23 PM on August 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

A lot of good things happened yesterday.

• The Iraqis and Nigerians that I play pickup soccer with everyday asked me to join their club team
• I met my neighbor, Jason, who is a complete stud.
• Jason and I will be sharing digital cable and internet now, for the low low price of 15 dollars per person.
• Snakes on a Plane. Enough said.

I also managed to return a long-lost sweater to its rightful owner yesterday. All in all things were spectacular, and that's not even mentioning the lovely lunch I had at Thai Garden.

brett at 10:37 AM on August 19, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

So there's some good news for me over at Slate today.

In the U.S. study, college graduates overall earned an average of 30 percent more than high-school graduates. And after accounting for other determinants of pay—age, intelligence, marital status, and race and ethnicity—lefties with college education earned 10 to 15 percent more than their right-handed counterparts.

Ha! Take that righties. Maybe I should mention on my resume that I'm a southpaw.

brett at 09:15 AM on August 18, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

Outkast's new album is mediocre. But, that's not really news, now is it? I happen to have a copy of Idlewild, and, well, I'm not impressed. I know, it's a soundtrack, and they aren't what they used to be, but, come on. They used to be so, so good. I'm sick of this crossover, innovation bullshit.

Big Boi needs to slap Andre around and tell him to quit pandering to white audiences (which is where all these CD sales will be coming from, you can bet on it). The Jurassic 5 crowd is gonna eat this up, so will most of the pundits, and I'm going to predict that Pitchfork gives it a good review, too.

Ugh.

Let's just compare for a moment. Check out the Idlewild CD cover:

Now let's look at the ATLiens cover:

I mean, enough said, right? Man. I almost want to shed a tear. Click on that second cover and enlarge it. You realize that shit had a full comic strip inside of it featuring Andre & Big Boi? God.

The 'Kast I used to love will never, ever be back. After Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, there was still this sort of feeling along the lines of, "Well, they experimented and it wasn't awful, and maybe, just maybe, they'll return to past glory with subsequent albums."

Not so.

That said, the track "PJ & Rooster" is money. Mark it down. You heard it here first.

brett at 02:25 PM on August 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

So yesterday they finally painted some bike lanes on 14th street. It looks like they go from about K or L street all the way down to Q street. I watched them paint a block of the lane in front of my apartment, destroying an entire lane of traffic in the process, and I couldn't help but wonder: why??

Bike lanes are completely unnecessary, and though I support biking downtown and bike downtown everyday, I don't think it's necessary to remove a lane of traffic (14th street has now been reduced from three lanes to two) in order to accomodate bikers, who can simply bike in the car lanes anyway.

Are bikers really that terrified of joining traffic? It's not that difficult. I've been doing it for a while, and I admit it took a bit of getting used to at first, but it works, and there's really not much to be scared of, especially if one follows traffic laws, wears a helmet and uses proper lights. To be honest, biking in the midst of cars is fun! But now we've got bike lanes, whoopee.

Oh well.

But if the lanes are supposed to make nervous bikers feel safer, I've got some bad news: they aren't on the sides of the road, people, they are directly in the middle. Have fun with that.

Ugh. Wate of money.

brett at 01:13 PM on August 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have perfected my recipe for saag paneer. So good. I dare say my recipe rivals the Oven in terms of taste, and definitely wins in terms of the amount of cheese I can insert. Cooking with paneer is money. Stuff doesn't melt!

brett at 07:32 AM on August 17, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

So I've been giving a bit more thought to the best album of 2006, and after giving E-40's "My Ghetto Report Card" a few more long hard listens, I've definitely decided that it is a rock-solid top 5 pick, and a serious contender for number one.

E-40 brings his time-tested style and combines it with an incredibly coherent set of production (headed by Lil Jon) that comes across as one long, listenable album. My favorite part about it is that 40 takes chances: from his flow to the beats, he's not repeating what was done before. He's eccentric and I'm impressed.

Update: Who knows what that vehicle behind him is?

Update 2: Turns out that thing is a T-Rex Motorcycle, and now you know what I want for my birthday. September 23rd, people. Mark it down. More here.

brett at 08:53 AM on August 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I finished.

Bachelor of Arts in International Studies, and a Bachelor of Journalism in News-Editorial. Baller status, I guess. Very odd day, all in all. I saw three women from my past in one day, then a repeat on Saturday night. Hadn't seen any of them in...? 6 months or more, maybe.

That said, I'm done. I got my paper(s).

(Oh, and there's a few more pics at Flickr, as always.)

brett at 11:27 AM on August 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (5)

There's a series of articles about the school my mom used to teach at, Clinton Elementary, in today's Journal Star. She got a mention in short article.

brett at 11:26 AM on August 07, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

William Saletan has a wonderful article about air conditioning over at Slate. And by wonderful I mean somewhat sobering:

Air conditioning takes indoor heat and pushes it outdoors. To do this, it uses energy, which increases production of greenhouse gases, which warm the atmosphere. From a cooling standpoint, the first transaction is a wash, and the second is a loss. We're cooking our planet to refrigerate the diminishing part that's still habitable.

You can see the road this article is headed down.

Air-conditioning the average U.S. home requires 3,400 pounds of carbon-dioxide production per year. The effects of this are particularly bad at night. Over the last five summers, very high minimum daily temperatures—those that score in the top 10 percent historically—have been far more widespread in this country than during any other five-year period. This is what's killing people. Outdoor air used to cool at night, allowing us to recover from the day's heat. Now it doesn't. To fuel our own air conditioning, we're destroying nature's.

Yep. Great stuff, this global warming.

What's interesting, to me, is how true this really is, how much AC we really use. I can think of dozens of friends who are absolutely terrified of the heat and will stay--literally--locked inside all day long, in perpetual cold and darkness simply to avoid a little sweat. Lately it has been especially hard for me to find anyone to do sporting activities with, though luckily there are the local immigrants who never grew up with the luxury of air conditioning, and thus don't mind playing pickup soccer when it's over 100 degrees out.

Instead of fixing the outdoors, we're trying to escape it. On every street in my neighborhood, people have torn down ordinary homes and put up giant air-conditioned boxes that extend as far as possible toward the property line. They've lost yards and windows, but that's the whole idea. Outdoor space is too hard to control, so we're replacing it with indoor space.

Ain't it the truth?

Sad state of affairs. I've never minded sweating, I've never minded the summer, and I've never minded leaving the AC off. I have a feeling I'm also in the minority.

brett at 11:09 AM on August 07, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

So my best friend from high school is married. Unbelievable. Kind of makes me feel old!

Look how great they are together. Just amazing. The wedding was spectacular, a casual affair that brought together lots of old friends--though it was almost unbearably hot. 105 degrees on the beach at 6 p.m. Good thing no one was required to wear suits and ties. Also a good thing swimming was allowed. I posted some more pictures of the wedding on Flickr. Enjoy.

brett at 12:55 PM on August 06, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I took a few pics of my apartment.

You can find the rest of them on Flickr. A few things you can't see in the photos: my sweet skylight and walkin closet. Word.

brett at 07:28 AM on August 04, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

The Cornhusker State is back in the Top 10 where it belongs... at least in terms of underage drinking and binge drinking. According to a new study, we rank in the top 20 percent of states for underage alcohol consumption. Some stats:

* 73 percent of high school students have taken at least one drink of alcohol in their life

* 43 percent have consumed alcohol in the previous 30 days

* 30 percent have had five or more drinks in a row within a couple of hours in the previous 30 days

— 2005 Nebraska Youth Behavior Risk Survey

I'll tip up a cup to that news! If underage drinking is this "bad," I would be very curious to see the percentage of teens who smoke pot vs. drink. I remember high school, and marijuana was a lot more accessible than alcohol, if one was looking for something to make a Friday night less boring. But now I'm digressing...

This Journal Star article is pretty interesting, in that it keeps with the standard line of discussion:

Not one community in Nebraska is not affected by the problems of underage drinking, said Fred Meyer, state Board of Education president.

“The societal cost is intolerable, and it’s huge,” he said.

Yet, if you actually read the article, you'll notice that there isn't one mention of these huge societal costs. There is no mention, even anecdotal, of the effects drinking on minors, let alone actual statistics or studies correlating underage drinking to anything negative for society as a whole.

I'm not arguing that there aren't societal costs (I wouldn't characterize them as huge), but the reporting should be investigative and shouldn't simply rehash the press release for a survey while sprinkling in quotes from the usual suspects. Thanks, Fred!

It's just shoddy reporting. The problem isn't even identified other than that underage drinking is against the law.

Seems like the LJS readership agrees with me. From the comments section:

Hey, I don't think it's a good idea for kids to drink, but they do. This grandstanding isn't going to stop it. Cutting them down isn't going to stop it.

...

Why is alcohol legal if it causes so many problems? It always baffles me that the drug called alcohol is legal along with Oxycontin and Valium but Extasy and Marijuana are illegal. They all cause damage to the body and cause impairment which leads to fatal accidents.

...

I went to 'beer' parties in high school, with my friends, usually at someone's house. I won the alternate regent's scholarship for my school. I was in the honor society. I graduated college with honors. I didn't become an alcoholic. I became a metallurgist, a mother, a wife, a homeowner. These people are latching on to a cause to make themselves look important, and it sickens me. Fred Meyer says that, “The societal cost is intolerable, and it’s huge,” Notice he doesn't elaborate!

Food for thought, I guess.

I'll leave you with this suggestion: perhaps we change the drinking age to 16 or even 15 and raise the driving age to 20. Would never work, though it's how most of the rest of the world does it.

brett at 10:33 AM on August 03, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Identify 100 things that make you happy besides money.

I saw this question on the captivating site, 43things, though I think I would modify the question to something more along the lines of: identify 100 things that make you happy and don't require money. That rules out consumer goods, etc. That might be too strict of an interpretation of the quesiton, though. I think answering it, with 100 answers could provide some nice reflection on one's life.

I might do it later, and might post it here.

brett at 12:08 PM on August 02, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a great article over at Psychology Today titled A Nation of Wimps, that deals with the effects of overparenting on today's children and the anxiety and depression it can produce in kids.

The perpetual access to parents infantilizes the young, keeping them in a permanent state of dependency. Whenever the slightest difficulty arises, "they're constantly referring to their parents for guidance," reports Kramer. They're not learning how to manage for themselves.

There's more to this article than just the anxiety angle, though. The authors make many sweeping statements about the mental health of today's kids:

Drinking, too, has changed. Once a means of social lubrication, it has acquired a darker, more desperate nature. Campuses nationwide are reporting record increases in binge drinking over the past decade, with students often stuporous in class, if they get there at all.

...

"Every fall, parents drop off their well-groomed freshmen and within two or three days many have consumed a dangerous amount of alcohol and placed themselves in harm's way. These kids have been controlled for so long, they just go crazy."

Too true. Just take a look around Abel, Sandoz, or Husker Courtyards, for example.

American parents today expect their children to be perfect—the smartest, fastest, most charming people in the universe. And if they can't get the children to prove it on their own, they'll turn to doctors to make their kids into the people that parents want to believe their kids are.

What they're really doing, he stresses, is "showing kids how to work the system for their own benefit."

Again, very true. It's interesting to see how many kids raised this way act when they make it to their 20s and 30s. I can count a dozen people who have yet to earn their independence--as the article puts it, cut the umbilical cord--and behave almost exactly as characterized in the above paragraph: working the system, and using the cellphone to call home in the slightest emergency.

The article has a huge bit about cellphones, but I'll let you read it for yourself.

Finally, I found this passage interesting:

Kids are having a hard time even playing neighborhood pick-up games because they've never done it, observes Barbara Carlson, president and cofounder of Putting Families First. "They've been told by their coaches where on the field to stand, told by their parents what color socks to wear, told by the referees who's won and what's fair. Kids are losing leadership skills."

After reading that, doesn't surprise me much at all that most of the guys I play pickup soccer with on a daily basis weren't born in America, and perhaps explains my own initial anxiety at joining them.

brett at 08:01 AM on August 02, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)