("Tutu" is Hawai'ian for "grandmother" and everything else is said phonetically)
Numbah One day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
One mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Two day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Two coconut, an' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Tree day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Foah day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Five day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Five beeg fat peeg... foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Seex day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg (that make TEN!), foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Seven day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Eight day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg (that make TWENNY!), foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Nine day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Nine pound of poi, eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Ten day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Ten can of beer, nine pound of poi, eight ukuklele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, Foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
Numbah Eleven day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Eleven missionary, ten can of beer, nine pound of poi, eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, five beeg fat peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree.
(Numbah Twelve day of Christmas the bes', and the bes' stuff always come
las'...)
Numbah Twelve day of Christmas, my tutu give to me
Twelve TELEVISION, eleven missionary, ten can of beer, nine pound of poi, eight ukulele, seven shrimp a-swimmin', seex hula lesson, FORTY steenkin' peeg, foah flowah lei, tree dry squid, two coconut,
An' one mynah bird in one papaya tree!
Friday, December 22, 2006
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Still Here and Kickin'
Yes, I am still alive. Sorry for the prolonged silence. I spent all of last week fighting a nasty chest cold which had gotten the better of me. When I wasn't trying to cough up a lung, I was making and eating soup and trying not to cough some more. Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
And most of this week has been spent getting my new toys ready at the office. While The Overlord may be demanding at times, there are benefits to working for him. Specifically the fact that he always has a ton of money to spend on his projects. And since I'm his primary tech guy, he turns to me to spend his money. This is a good thing. So, I've been spending his money over the last few months and we finally got all of our equipment in. The university techs have prepped and returned it, so now it's just down to me getting everything else set up and ready, installing software, etc. And the best part is that The Overlord always wants us to have really good equipment. There are benefits to working for a man with more money than God.
And then today, my day off, I managed to survive the crowds at the mall to finish off the very last of my Christmas shopping. Now, I'm not a big fan of malls in general, but during the holidays they are absolutely evil. If I can avoid them, I do. Sadly, this year, I could not. Luckily, I managed to make in and out in under an hour and survived to tell the tale.
One more thing to bring people up to date on. As of last Friday, I officially have my M.A. After all the crap that went down at the end of the summer and having to delay my graduation until this semester, I just glad to have it all done.
Well, now that every one is all caught up, I want to wish all a happy (or at the very least, survivable) holidays. I'll be out of touch until after the first of the year. Assuming that it's not snowed under, I'll be flying to Denver on Saturday, and then we're going out to Hawai'i for a week. We'll be in rural Hawai'i with only dial-up, so online things just aren't going to happen. But I'll be back in Arizona late on the 3rd, so I'll see you all then (metaphorically speaking anyway). Peace!
And most of this week has been spent getting my new toys ready at the office. While The Overlord may be demanding at times, there are benefits to working for him. Specifically the fact that he always has a ton of money to spend on his projects. And since I'm his primary tech guy, he turns to me to spend his money. This is a good thing. So, I've been spending his money over the last few months and we finally got all of our equipment in. The university techs have prepped and returned it, so now it's just down to me getting everything else set up and ready, installing software, etc. And the best part is that The Overlord always wants us to have really good equipment. There are benefits to working for a man with more money than God.
And then today, my day off, I managed to survive the crowds at the mall to finish off the very last of my Christmas shopping. Now, I'm not a big fan of malls in general, but during the holidays they are absolutely evil. If I can avoid them, I do. Sadly, this year, I could not. Luckily, I managed to make in and out in under an hour and survived to tell the tale.
One more thing to bring people up to date on. As of last Friday, I officially have my M.A. After all the crap that went down at the end of the summer and having to delay my graduation until this semester, I just glad to have it all done.
Well, now that every one is all caught up, I want to wish all a happy (or at the very least, survivable) holidays. I'll be out of touch until after the first of the year. Assuming that it's not snowed under, I'll be flying to Denver on Saturday, and then we're going out to Hawai'i for a week. We'll be in rural Hawai'i with only dial-up, so online things just aren't going to happen. But I'll be back in Arizona late on the 3rd, so I'll see you all then (metaphorically speaking anyway). Peace!
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
D-U-N!
Done!
I have just finished the final paper for one of my classes. And I am happy! This class has been a bit of pain in the ass all this semester. It's one of those classes you only take because it's required. We've spent the entire semester looking at different theories and methodologies for the practice of history. As a public historian, this is not of that much use to me. I understand why they want everyone to take it and I accept that. But since it's not that important to me, and given that it's a fuckin' pass/fail class, I've spent much of the semester asking "Why should I care or put too much effort into this?" That's not to say that I've slacked off in the class or anything like that, but other things have taken priority on my "To Do" list.
One of the most aggravating things about this class has been the professor. She and I have not always seen eye to eye on things, and (personally) I have found her style a bit grating at times. She is very intelligent and very invested in making the class do what it's supposed to. No question about that. There have just been a few times that she and I have had fundamental disagreements on things, with neither one of us willing to give. From my perspective (and I want to make this clear - this is how I view things, so this is totally biased), she is one of those people who seems to feel that because of who she is, where she comes from, and how she was trained as a historian, she has some kind of special insight to all aspects of a few things. Without going into details, suffice to say that she seems to think that she has the authority to speak on all aspects of gender, religion, and the practice of history. On this last one, she has basically come out and said that she thinks that public historians are incapable of being objective in their research because they are working for clients. This, of course, annoys me quite thoroughly. I have tried to point out that historians working in academe also have clients, it's just that our clients pay us with money and their clients pay them with tenure positions, book and article publications. (She didn't much like that statement.) Now, I am more than willing to admit that my being annoyed is a big part of the reason I am so unwilling to back down on some things.
So, back to the final paper. This was to be 12-15 pages on "What is history?" The way the assignment was written, we could either focus on how people have thought about history over time, or how they have practiced it, realizing of course that there is a great deal of overlap between the two. I chose the second, focusing on how the practice of history has slowly but continuously moved away from being a strictly academic one, and toward being public focused. In other words, as historians have expanded their subject areas to include more than just dead white men in politics and the military, they have been forced to also expand their methods of presentation to include more than just teaching undergrads and writing wordy monographs for other academics.
Needless to say, my paper is a Big Fucking Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. But, the pin has been pulled (the paper is done) and it has been lobbed (and has been turned in to her box). Now we just wait for the fall out!
I have just finished the final paper for one of my classes. And I am happy! This class has been a bit of pain in the ass all this semester. It's one of those classes you only take because it's required. We've spent the entire semester looking at different theories and methodologies for the practice of history. As a public historian, this is not of that much use to me. I understand why they want everyone to take it and I accept that. But since it's not that important to me, and given that it's a fuckin' pass/fail class, I've spent much of the semester asking "Why should I care or put too much effort into this?" That's not to say that I've slacked off in the class or anything like that, but other things have taken priority on my "To Do" list.
One of the most aggravating things about this class has been the professor. She and I have not always seen eye to eye on things, and (personally) I have found her style a bit grating at times. She is very intelligent and very invested in making the class do what it's supposed to. No question about that. There have just been a few times that she and I have had fundamental disagreements on things, with neither one of us willing to give. From my perspective (and I want to make this clear - this is how I view things, so this is totally biased), she is one of those people who seems to feel that because of who she is, where she comes from, and how she was trained as a historian, she has some kind of special insight to all aspects of a few things. Without going into details, suffice to say that she seems to think that she has the authority to speak on all aspects of gender, religion, and the practice of history. On this last one, she has basically come out and said that she thinks that public historians are incapable of being objective in their research because they are working for clients. This, of course, annoys me quite thoroughly. I have tried to point out that historians working in academe also have clients, it's just that our clients pay us with money and their clients pay them with tenure positions, book and article publications. (She didn't much like that statement.) Now, I am more than willing to admit that my being annoyed is a big part of the reason I am so unwilling to back down on some things.
So, back to the final paper. This was to be 12-15 pages on "What is history?" The way the assignment was written, we could either focus on how people have thought about history over time, or how they have practiced it, realizing of course that there is a great deal of overlap between the two. I chose the second, focusing on how the practice of history has slowly but continuously moved away from being a strictly academic one, and toward being public focused. In other words, as historians have expanded their subject areas to include more than just dead white men in politics and the military, they have been forced to also expand their methods of presentation to include more than just teaching undergrads and writing wordy monographs for other academics.
Needless to say, my paper is a Big Fucking Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch. But, the pin has been pulled (the paper is done) and it has been lobbed (and has been turned in to her box). Now we just wait for the fall out!
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
An Important Anniversary
Today is a special day, whether you know it or not. It was on this day, 73 years ago, that the 18th Amendment was repealed. If you don't remember the 18th Amendment off the top of your head, allow me to refresh your memory. The 18th was the amendment which prohibited "the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States." In other words, Prohibition. The 18th Amendment was in effect from January 16, 1920, until December 5, 1933, when it was repealed with the passage of the 21st Amendment. In honor of this day, here is an old Irish folk song which seemed appropriate:
Of all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company;
And all the harm I've ever done, alas was done to none but me;
And all I've done for want of wit, to memory now I can't recall,
So fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
Of all the comrades e'er I had, they're sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts e'er I had, they wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should go and you should not,
I'll gently rise and softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all.
If I had money enough to spend and leisure time to sit awhile,
There is a fair maid in this town who sorely has my heart beguiled.
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips, I own she has my heart in thrall,
So fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
~ "The Parting Glass," Traditional Irish Folk Song
Of all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company;
And all the harm I've ever done, alas was done to none but me;
And all I've done for want of wit, to memory now I can't recall,
So fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
Of all the comrades e'er I had, they're sorry for my going away,
And all the sweethearts e'er I had, they wish me one more day to stay,
But since it falls unto my lot that I should go and you should not,
I'll gently rise and softly call, goodnight and joy be with you all.
If I had money enough to spend and leisure time to sit awhile,
There is a fair maid in this town who sorely has my heart beguiled.
Her rosy cheeks and ruby lips, I own she has my heart in thrall,
So fill me to the parting glass, goodnight and joy be with you all.
~ "The Parting Glass," Traditional Irish Folk Song
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Fuckin' John Madden
Every time I watch Sunday Night Football, I find myself more and more annoyed by John Madden. I know he's been in football for years, but that still doesn't stop the guy from being a complete idiot. When he's not stating the obvious, he's making comments which are just idiotic or wrong. I wish he would just shut the fuck up and go away.
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