this is the railroad crossing about a quarter mile near my house. pretty cool huh? ten years ago, my dad was crossing these tracks in his pick-up and got hit by a single train engine. there had been a row of trees that perfectly obscured the engine, but they have since been removed. the accident broke his neck, and he had to wear a “halo” to keep his neck from turning. the brace was secured by screws drilled into his skull. i remember he liked to tease my brother’s girlfriend by asking her to adjust one of those screws. he remembers that gag fondly.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-25) -
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
What I Did When I Couldn't Find a Job -
via azspot:
It was a bit of a shock, losing all expectations. For years—all my life, really—parents, teachers, and guidance counselors had told me that if I went to a good college and did well, I would be able to find a job after graduation that would, with a little ladder-climbing, keep me comfortable and financially secure. After I graduated in May 2009, in political science, I moved back home to St. Louis to start my career, but there simply were no jobs to be found.
Over several months, I sent out more than 500 résumés for all sorts of jobs all over the country, but I got only two interviews and no offers.
I couldn’t find a job, but neither could anyone I knew. Now, more than a year after graduation, most of my college friends still live at home, and many of those who have moved out are borrowing money from their parents to eat and pay rent. A few have internships, but most of those are unpaid, and few are likely to lead to jobs. Two friends who studied psychology for four years now work off the books at a sandwich shop. Another, who got her master’s in development studies from Cambridge, became a barista at Starbucks.
Some are applying to grad school just to have something to do, but the prospect of racking up thousands more dollars in student debt is crushing. The rest are still looking, sending out résumés, going to career fairs, volunteering for experience, and networking. Some have given up. We are a whole generation graduating into a job market that has no room for us.
So I moved to India.
i was too busy commiserating with the piece to see that “punchline” coming, and when i did, i panted OH MY GAWD out loud. ugh. i guess i should start looking into communicative disorders programs if i want some secure and meaningful work with linguistics.
the liquid is seriously labeled BUSH ERA RED INK.
i hate political cartoons
I see the NYT decided not to go with their original headline, “Krugman: Total Poon Hound.”
Skyline of Madison, Wisconsin, across Lake Monona.
Photo taken August 2, 2008 by me.
To relate this to music history… Otis Redding and most members of The Bar-Kays died when their plane crashed in Lake Monona on their way to a show in Madison on December 10, 1967.
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-18) -
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
is there some kind of High Scores list i can put my initials on?
gpoyw june fitting room with hands too big for phone
“Thought without symbols — life without language — it’s a cognitive reality that is virtually impossible for most modern humans to fathom. For the vast majority of us, our thought processes have been profoundly shaped by the introjection of language into our cognitive worlds, the taking on board of a massive intellectual prosthesis, the collective product of countless generations. Human thought, for the majority, is not simply the individual outcome of our evolved neural architecture, but also the result of our borrowing of the immense symbolic and intellectual resources available in language. What would human thought be like without language?” —
Life without language (via azspot)
Reblogged for Simen and for later reading.
You know how there people who are really really into shitty industrial/noise music and you don’t know why/how they get pleasure from something so intolerable and painful? Simen’s kinda like that but for linguistic determinism. No, really.
Actually, I don’t know what this analogy means. I think he’s a genius on a pretty perverse and (IMHO) unappealing topic.
