So I was reading the DN online today and ran across the article UNL's drinking problem not as bad as it seems. There's nothing wrong with the article itself. But take a look at this screenshot I took as I was reading it:

Check out the N Street Liquor ad in the lower right. I just love juxtapositions like this. Plus, the ad is actually pretty good--30 pounds of ice and 50 keg cups with every keg purchase? Hell yes, where do I sign?

brett at 12:40 PM on September 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I feel like I'm buried in journal articles right now. Preparing a graduate research proposal is incredibly difficult. Ugh. At least Jstor is my friend.

I'm really not sure what I'd be doing without this fantastic resource. Ah, the Internet revolution.

brett at 09:06 AM on September 28, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Journal Star is taking a proactive stance today! Oh boy! Believe it or not, but they've come out against the CDC's study, which reported that Lincoln is #4 in America in terms of adults who binge drink. Let's look at this fiery editorial! (OK, not that fiery...)

If Lincoln needed a call to action to cut down on binge drinking, a fourth-place national ranking for this risky behavior ought to be sufficient.

Call to action? More like call to the bar! Gotta love it when the LJS writes a story about binge drinking and half of their staff falls into the category of alcoholic.

As bad as Lincoln’s rate is, it would be a lot worse if not for a concerted effort being made at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to curb binge drinking through the NU Directions program.

Since the campus-community coalition began its work in 1998, binge drinking on campus has dropped from 63 percent in 1997 to 42 percent, which is below the national average.

This is horrible news! Let's push that number back up where it belongs, in the high 70s! Seriously. I mean, can you imagine a place where college kids don't know how to drink out of a beer bong, shotgun a Budweiser or slam a tequila shot and lick the salt off their wrist?

I can imagine it. It's a sad place where all the teddy bears are gone, the birds have stopped chirping and the fluffly, white clouds have been replaced with swirling, dark storms. It's hell.

I really want to have a shirt made that says something about being the number four binge drinkers in the country. Wear it like a badge of honor.

...

So I'm being a bit sarcastic. But really. The outrage over this is silly. Most of the binge drinkers in this town are just like me: gainfully employed, successful, talented, creative and ambitious; oh, and also bored out of their minds. Lincoln! You've already taken away everything else fun (or never brought it here in the first place), so let's at least keep the binge drinking so that we can keep our sanity in this town!

(Right)

Update: Something hilarious I noticed in this editorial. Let's check the contradiction, see if you can spot it. I'll show you two sentences from today's editorial:

If Lincoln needed a call to action to cut down on binge drinking, a fourth-place national ranking for this risky behavior ought to be sufficient.

Ok. So we're fourth place in the country, which basically means a ton of binge drinking is going on here. But then there's this statement:

One significant finding among college students is that they typically believe binge drinking is more common than it actually is, which induces some to go along with an imaginary cultural norm. A similar phenomenon might be at work in the general population.

Wait a minute. Sounds like the college students' beliefs about binge drinking are spot on, considering that we are #4, that is. Bravo, LJS.

brett at 07:32 AM on September 27, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

So as far as birthday's go, I had a very mediocre one. It seems like I'm always depressed and alone on my birthday, though. So nothing new there. The day was saved, however, by Samantha, Sylvia and Kristin, who put candles on a Jimmy John's #6 veggie sandwich for me to blow out at 2 a.m. after the bars had closed.

That was pretty fantastic.

brett at 10:00 AM on September 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

My hair smells very, very fresh and clean.I added a bit of tea tree oil to my standard shampoo, and wow, what a result. It also had a nice effect of reducing itchiness in my scalp.

Let's all take a moment to thank Australia for this fine export.

brett at 09:56 AM on September 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2)

Just a few things on my mind today:

Notre Dame sucks. What a heartbreaker against Michigan State. Although the Irish victory catapulted me to second place in points for the week in my ESPN pick 'em pool, I would have much rather seen the Spartans walk away with with a win. Grr.

The Justin Timberlake album is unbelievable. I just want to reiterate this. I can't stop listening to it. You heard it here first, kids. (Also, I'm not sure if I mentioned this already, but he has a track with Three 6 Mafia on there, holla!)

brett at 09:20 AM on September 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Finally, finally, finally. Man. I was nervous. I thought the kid had gone soft, lost his touch, fell off. But nope. The new album is HOT.

Don't be fooled by the R&B posing going on here. This album is good. Luda comes hard, especially for the first 5 or 6 tracks (though he does descend into the love ballads to round out the album, but they ain't bad).

After falling into mediocrity he's back! Here's hoping that this album kicks off a stellar Fall season for hip hop.

Update: Here. Have a taste of this thing: Ultimate Satisfaction (f. Field Mob). 'Cris completely rips it on the first verse. Damn. I'm impressed, and that's not even mentioning the beat which is a fucking fantastic remix of Benny Benassi's "Satisfaction." You wanna hear more you better go cop this album. September 26th, son.

brett at 12:44 PM on September 22, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dreadlocks around the world... my friend Rachel has been in Thailand for a while now, in Bangkok actually. So she's been experiencing the coup firsthand. When I first heard about what was going on, my initial reaction was, "The parents of American exchange students will be freaking out, even though this will not be a major issue." Turns out I was right. Concerned parents, and peaceful coup. Peep the pic:

There she is, hanging out with some soldiers. Pretty baller if you ask me. Tons more photos over here.

brett at 11:45 AM on September 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week in music...

Let's start with the NOT:

Seriously. Ching-a-Ling is the Pee Wee Herman of rap and needs to give it up. This album is total basura (that's Spanish for garbage, people). There's not even one solid beat on this thing. The only redeeming factor is that Three Six Mafia shows up for a featured appearance on one track. That's it. Oh, and speaking of Three 6, they will be starring in an MTV reality show starting next year. I'm psyched for that.

Now, as for the hot:

This album is off the hook. Check it out as soon as you can. The dual Tim attack (Timbaland and Timberlake, son), it's smokin' hot. Definitely looking at a best of 2006 candidate right here. J. Timberlake is sort of channeling that 1980's Off the Wall version of Michael Jackson, and I'm loving it (or was that the 70s?).

brett at 10:26 AM on September 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, well, not a number one, but pretty close to the top of the list. The Journal Star is running a fun little article about binge drinking today (they have to do it at least once a year) and guess what?

As elsewhere, high rates of binge drinking among college students goes hand-in-hand with higher rates among young- and middle-aged adults.

Lincoln’s rate is the fourth worst in the nation. Binge drinking – drinking to get drunk – is worse here than in Madison, Wis.; Las Vegas or Minneapolis.

Three cheers for that. Samantha and I were actually discussing this in LA. Does living in Lincoln make one prone to drinking more? We concluded that yes, there are more than a few drunks in this city. I guess that this really isn't something to be proud of, but you know, sometimes you have to take whatever recognition you can get.

I'll see everyone at the Watering Hole tonight.

Update: Just did a little blog checking, and came across this old post from August, which is semi-related in that it's another alarmist article about binge and underage drinking in the Journal Star.

brett at 09:38 AM on September 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some may say that this is a bit premature. But we got the tickets.

Dec 2nd, Arrowhead Stadium. You gotta have faith.

brett at 09:12 AM on September 21, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Philip K. Dick's book, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is seriously a phenomenal literary achievement. Because it is so good I will honor him with a picture on my blog:

What a guy. When organic robots actually become a reality, this book will be looked back on and regarded even more highly than it is today. There's a scene where a human has sex with a robot. The implications are fascinating.

brett at 01:43 PM on September 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seeing the Pacific Ocean from the other side--finally--was a surprisingly profound experience that left me without even a semblance of my normal post-travel homesickness. "Ugh. I'm so ready to be back in Lincoln," was replaced with cockeyed contentedness, sandy toes and salty soaked dreadlocks that may have had their first sniff of a future home.

I was swinging at sunset on the shore; up and down and up again, when it really hit me that the ocean is where I belong--I've experienced it before, but not like this. Up and down and up and down and though there's more driving and less waliking and lots of things not really designed for me, it seems that there must be a little spot out here ready to accept me, a perfect little fit along the coast.

Those waves lapping at my little toes.

It would be nice.

brett at 09:55 AM on September 20, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think I have a massive crush on Emily Bazelon of Slate. I don't know what she looks like, but I enjoy listening to her talk during Slate podcasts.

brett at 09:00 AM on September 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

According to this little article, hip-hop fans have more sex.

Almost 38 per cent of hip hop devotees and 29 per cent of dance music fans were more likely to have had more than one sexual partner in the last five years compared to just 1.5 per cent of country music fans.

Take that Big & Rich!!

brett at 01:58 PM on September 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm going to take a moment to look back on some albums that stick out in my mind; albums that are for a variety of reasons linked to certain periods of my life. I think everyone ties music to major parts of their life. Sounds can bring back faces, events, love and loss, etc. Whether or not we actually like the music, it resonates with us, for whatever reason. I find myself particularly susceptible to music as a means of looking back through time.

I'm going to leave off a lot of stuff, for sure. This will be an exercise in association. I'm going to pair these albums with the images they make me think of.

DJ Andy Smith - The Document - Ben Spadt's Colt Vista. Riding around Lincoln aimlessly. Heading home West from Southeast High School riding shotgun on a sunny day. Freedom and youth.

The Faint - Danse Macabre - Being a freshman, sophmore. Shows and dark parties with dark hallways. The attic at T-Town and late nights. Depression and mystery. Megan.

The Prodigy - Always Outnumbered Never Outgunned - Driving over the stadium bridge headed to a girl's apartment out on Superior. Late nights at the Lincoln Journal Star. Electric summer skies.

Outkast - ATLiens - High school and everything beautiful about smoking hot asphalt at 2 p.m. Parties and girls and the feeling of growing up. Adam's open-top Jeep CJ-5 at the stoplight on 27th and Highway 2 late one night.

Chemical Brothers - Push the Button - Commuting in Japan. Trains and rush and bathing in ultra-urban neon lights. Quiet among many. Rushing by the Matsudo stop on the Joban line during the packed commute home and thinking of a girl at home.

GO!GO!7188 - Tategami - Depression and Japan. Lonliness. Being swallowed by a city. The depths of sadness, yet also hope. Hapiness. My apartment and its postcard splattered walls.

Busta Rhymes - Genesis - Partying at T-Town. The front room with a stereo. Tony Hawk Pro Skater III. Dancing and a lot of girls whose names begin with the letter "A."

Black Eyed Peas - Elephunk and Monkey Business - Japan and clubs, dancing and darkness, sweat and alcohol and girls. Innocence and mystery.

DJ Tiesto - In Search of Sunrise - My dorm room. My bed. Being wrapped in cables and headphones for hours and hours. Late nights with Hisayo and the promise of tomorrow.

Jedi Mind Tricks - Violent By Design - Blue backpacks, a girl named Lindsay. T-town and my bedroom and English class with a professor I've completely forgotten.

brett at 09:59 AM on September 14, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I rediscovered the best (maybe) album of last year this week. I can't stop listening to it. I guess this means I'm going through a cocaine-rap renaissance.

I've always liked this album. I have the triple vinyl LP version of it, I like it so much. It's been forever since I've sat down and listened to it, though. Dude has such a cohesive flow with beats that sound effortlessly tied to his verses. Gotta love it.

Plus the guy just oozes confidence the same way a lion at home in the Kalahari does.

Peep the snowman ice-piece.

brett at 10:07 AM on September 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I'm so incredibly settled into my apartment. I love everything about it: the city outside of the giant windows, the bars below, the kitchen complete with little red and brown plates, the couch that holds me up, everything, everything and everything ever more.

I think this is what life feels like after graduating. Free. Content. It's the pre-rut mode where working isn't exactly fun, but life is dandy. Filled with coffee and alcohol, 7:30 a.m. walks in crisp air, music and dim lighting and plants and the all the things to be loved.

I'm not sure I've been this happy in years.

brett at 08:50 AM on September 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I added a new piece of artwork to my apartment today. I think I will probably put it in the bathroom.

Yeah. I think this will go good in the bathroom looking over my shoulder into the mirror. I'm also working on a few other various apartment improvement projects, including track lighting. I think.

brett at 08:35 AM on September 13, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't want to jinx myself, but after a 5 mile run yesterday it seems as though my shin splints may be gone (or at least fading). I am absolutely elated about this. Now maybe I can actually get back into one of the sports I love.

brett at 10:26 AM on September 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I leave for LA in a few days. Oh man.

brett at 09:13 AM on September 12, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow. Well. It's September 11th. I guess I should blog about it? I don't have anything to say, really.

ABC's dramatization of the 9/11 commission report made me want to vomit. So did whatever bullshit CBS was showing. The only primetime 9/11 coverage I was actually able to watch last night was the Colts/Giants game.

I just can't take it. Seriously.

I can't remember where I read it, but someone wrote that she was infuriated with September 11th because now Americans had one more thing to crow about: they were now the world's biggest victims.

Last night when I was ruminating over it, there was at least one thing that helped me reconcile my feelings. I was incredibly proud that UNL's depth reporting class has not (to my knowledge) done anything related to September 11th.

It's not because I don't empathize. It's not because I'm un-American. But what September 11th has become in our culture is just taxing on my senses, on my understanding of the world.

I think everyone who says they don't like to see the collapse/crashes replayed on TV is a liar. They need it. I suspect that everyone loves it. It's pornography. September 11th and all of it's memorializations are pornographic. I can't partake in that. What happened to sincerity?

Ugh. Nothing more to type.

brett at 02:35 PM on September 11, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)

Anyone else fed up with the ridiculous new clock rules in college football? If so, head over to WeHateTheNewClockRules.com and join the pile on. Seems like the sentiment around the country is that these new rules are totally bogus.

brett at 08:11 AM on September 08, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have come across the worst Dear Abby ever. I'll share it with you now:

DEAR ABBY: I need your advice on how to break an engagement with my fiance, whose tour of duty in Iraq has been extended four more months. He has been there eight months, and during his absence, I met someone else I would like to start dating.

I didn't want to stress out my fiance, and I wanted to wait until he returned to talk to him, but now I feel too guilty, so I need to address it soon. Please help me. -- FEELING GUILTY, MEMPHIS, TENN.

DEAR FEELING GUILTY: It's time to grow up and think about someone other than yourself. There is something more important right now than assuaging your guilt. It's making sure that nothing distracts your fiance from the job he is doing -- and will be doing until he is safely back home.

Under no circumstances should you write him a "Dear John" letter or tell him anything that could unnerve or depress him. If you feel guilty now, how do you think you would feel if he was injured or killed after you dumped that kind of news on him? I can't stress strongly enough how important it is that you put his feelings first right now. What you have in mind can wait until his tour of duty is behind him.

Wow. I mean right, this woman is in the wrong no matter how you slice things but come on. She needs to let this guy go. Anyone dealing with a breakup is in a bad spot, and this is no different simply because he's doing a dangerous job. Ridiculous advice.

brett at 07:28 AM on September 08, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

Last night right the clouds out my bedroom window were so fluffy and sparse yet so patterned--lit against a nearly full moon--that as I collapsed onto my sheets and stared into that dark semi-organized expanse I felt a weird sense of belonging, something very organic.

The mysteries of my new home have slowly made themselves known to me and I feel settled.

A friend of mine is in Bangkok, living in the kind of 10 dollar a day ultra-urban squalor that I sort of quixotically dream of when I fall asleep beneath floating black clumps of sky.

"Start Digging," she told me.

Bangkok is exactly 12 hours ahead of Nebraska, and only a few (trillion) tons of soil and magma separate us, that is, if we are digging. Straight as the bird flies through the core of the Earth, I guess.

It's neat how it's all so connected, and how people and things just won't go away no matter how far gone they are. I'm living and breathing it daily.

For Halloween I will be going as the Ghost of Dale Earnhardt.

brett at 01:09 PM on September 07, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (0)

So Three 6 Mafia did a song with Chingy. Man, what a disappointment. This comment from the XXLmag.com message boards sums up my feelings:

man i thought Chingy had finally crapped outta the game for good. guess thatz askin’ too much. Three 6 shouldn’t help keep this lame scrub at the poker table. stop throwin’ them poker chips his way. let the kid fold.

Chingy: The Pee-Wee Herman of rap.

That said, Go 'Skers.

brett at 02:20 PM on September 01, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1)

OK so there's something I badly want to do this Fall/Winter, and I want you to join me. I want to read Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce, a book that has been called "the work of a psychopath or a huge literary fraud" and "the most colossal leg pull in literature."

If you're not all that familiar with Finnegan's Wake, you may want to check the Wikipedia entry on it. Essentially, this book is incoherent and notoriously difficult to finish, and even more complex to understand.

So I want to read it, and from what I understand one way to finish the book is to read it while drinking, and the second way is to read it aloud. There is no other way to finish it.

I propose a reading group where a few people will drink and take turns reading this aloud to one another. I think it would be fantastic. Anyone with me? If you're on the fence about this one, let me give you a little taste (it's like crack, baby):

O here here how hoth sprowled met the duskt the father of fornicationists but, (O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement! (page 4, lines 11–14)

The entire book is like that, and it's over 600 pages. Anyone in?

brett at 08:30 AM on September 01, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (4)