Why does the last panel of this frame of this comic make me laugh every time.

So I'm beging work on a new fall DJ meeting poster. Last year the theme was zombies, the year before was 50s scifi. Right now I'm torn between film noir and westerns. Any advice or opinions would be appreciated.

This pretty much sums up my conversations with Polonowski everyday... except he won't even read books with Wookiees in them.

My spring break consisted of hardcore analysis of the most extreme Lost fans for a seminar paper in fandom. I think I am starting to go crazy. I seriously have started to overanalyze everything for connections to the numbers and so forth.

One of the more interesting things I assembled dealt with the terms poaching and bricolage. Both have sort of been adapted from other scientific studies but were brought over to cultural studies. Bricolage comes from anthropology and deals with groups making items from materials at hand. When applied to textual reading bricolage means the assemblage of various elements from a reading. This can be the assemblage of different interpretations or world views from the texts. Lost fans most certainly do this looking for mysterious of faith, philosophy and science behind their favorite show. It becomes a launching point for theorizing they wanted, no needed to do.

It can also be an act of defiance to the original text as well. So take something like the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. At this point in the series we have seen it from several point of views. Some on the Island and some within the flight itself. To assemble this into one chronological sequence such as this:



The audience defies the creator original intention of presentations. No new understanding of the events within the reality of the show occurs, but a more personal understanding of the concepts of sequencing and linearity forms.

I just needed to explain this to people now or my head is going to explode soon. I've also spent many hours during spring break trying to explain this but I think I must appear rather obsessive myself at this point.

At around 12:45 I was awoken to the sensation of my house shaking. A few seconds later Chris is yelling "The house across the street just exploded." I threw on some clothes and a jacket to go look and you could see the beginings of a fire in the house. By the time I had gotten outside our neighbor Wood was already at the door to the house, ripping it off, yelling to the residents that they had to get out now. Glass littered the street from the explosion blowing the porch out. Appearently a whole wall of the place was just gone.

For the next hour or so we watched it burned down with the two people who lived there. They got out completely safe thankfully. I wish I could help people cope better. I could see that they were going through some serious shell shock and I just didn't know the words to say. So basically I did what I could and let them use my cell to call people and my laptop look up phone numbers.

Its about 2:15 right now and the entire structure of the home has collapsed but the firefighters are trying their damnedest to get it all the way out. I've never seen anything like this.

Wading my way through the DVD set, I have come to the conclusion that The Prisoner may be the greatest television show ever made. Its enthralling, ponderous, paranoid and at times playfull. So much of popular culture owes an influence, from The Matrix to The Simpsons to Lost. In general internet recommendations are hollow and insignificant, but if you have never seen it try your hardest to see it. They no longer show episodes on BBC America, but if you can find a torrent, get it.

So its now 2:25 and I'm in Atlanta's airport and my plane that leaves in 40 minutes is still listed as being on schedule. The actual plane is here and I have my boarding pass in hand. Once I get out of Fort Myer's airport around 4:30 I'll have spent 25 hours in a row on either a plane or an airport. Thats roughly only 3 hours less than it would have taken me to drive the distance, and thats including more sleeping time than I got last night.

Looking around I am not nearly the only one with problems. That doesn't necessarily make me feel better but I at least don't feel secluded. I always find it amazing the stories you get to hear with a shared frustration. Last night at Detroit I heard so many different stories of pessimism as well as seasonal optimism. On my flight today I heard the horror story of the fella in the seat next too me. Apparently flights out of the Philippines are not the most reliable. But I'm ready for wheels on the Fort Myer ground and to be able to sleep.

Its the week of Christmas and that means the annual trip to Florida my family takes to be with my Grandmother. This year I flew out of Sawyer airport near Marquette. Do to whatever reason that flight was delayed and left the airport over an hour late. We landed in Detroit over two hours late and my connecting flight to Fort Myers was long gone. The Northwest customer service was incredibly unhelpful and basically refused to set me up in a hotel for the night because the incident was weather related and not mechanical.

So I had to stay over night here at Detroit Metro. I tried to get some sleep while it was fairly empty. Their were about 20 or so of us spread out across the A concourse, Northwest's main operating area. From 12:30 to 4:30 I tried to get as much sleep possible with a total gain of probably 30 minutes, maybe 45.

So, here is the score. I haven't had a meal of an substance since my lunch at noon yesterday(the last hour the restaurants were still open here I had to spend waiting in line for the help desk). I haven't showered since yesterday morning despite being in the cramped flying conditions that cause more B.O. and actually makes having it affect things that much more. I don't get to get out of here till just before 11AM today. And even than I am flying to Atlanta to connect with a Delta flight. I have a feeling not everything is going to go smooth in Atlanta either.

What a way to start this god damn holiday.

My Thanksgiving has now been ruined. I shouldn't have watched my DVR today.

Its been over two months since my last post, but as one can imagine I have been... busy. Things are falling into shape as I am starting to get the hang of this grad school thing. Apparently as a student I'm producing good work. I'm keeping up with due dates and readings and the stack of things I have read for the semester is frighting when I reflect upon it. My focus and plan for the remainder of my time at MTU is starting to take shape.

My students also seem to be pleased with my teaching style. I think all of them have been horrified about the odd assignments I have been asking them to perform but in the end they like what they are doing. Of note of course is the Darmok assignment, something I long debated including or not. Basically the students would need to act out predetermined basic scene replacing the language they would normally use with cultural metaphors. Hopefully they would learn a lot about audience analysis. I decided too and yes some students were terrified when I gave it to them. But through 3 weeks of work it eventually became time for them to present. I've never been more proud of them. It was exactly as I envisioned it. Afterwards I was able to express just how much the assignment meant to me and they seemed a little surprised that a teacher cared as much as I did. Afterwards I had them write responses and it worked, the assignment really gave them a lesson about audience analysis. My favorite part is that in multiple papers it was express that they thought it would be easy and it wasn't. That they never thought they would have to do that much work for a humanities class assignment and yet they did.

I've also now been evaluated by my boss Randy's assistant Moe, I guess I'm doing a very good job. And during the past week I have been doing conferences with my students and they have all expressed a sense of satisfaction with the class.

I guess I may be cut out for this life.