Incase You're Interested

Due to the recent out break of herpes on this website, google is asking that all bloggers be careful and practice safe blogging.

Anyway aside from my PSA...

I have recently decided to start up a myspace for poets. No this is not a personal myspace, but a group thing. Some of you may dabble in the realm of poetry and if you do let me know, perhaps you are interested in helping me with it? also let me know (I have no clue how to use myspace). It probably won't be available for another week or so, but if you have some stuff you'd like the world to see send it to poets.speak@gmail.com
I have some hopes and aspirations for this, so we'll see how it goes, tell your friends etc.

I also would like to have a little podcast action too, but maybe I'm just dreaming.

Please let me know if you want to help with it, Ethan (wink wink).

Respect,
Mr. Greg

Shing-ga-la {personal entry}

about 5 days ago i developed a cluster of red spots on my right rib nearing my back. At the time i excused these spots as bug bits, or, worse, an allergic reaction to 'something.' They itched but nothing out of control. Just yesterday i felt a 'lump' in my groin area being a bit uncomfortable i decided to see the school nurse, figuring the spots and the lump are related.

without going too much into detail - the lump reminded me of a muscle knot you sometimes find in a dog -

well, unfortunately, the nurses office was backed up with emergences, so, i had to change plans and come back early tomorrow morning...

let me tell you... your mind does some crazy thinking when you have a lump and red spots on your body-

i woke up this morning at the crack of 8:30am to shuffle my feet (in the rain) to the nurses office. Since this was my first visit i had to answer some basic questions as well as take some simple test, like blood pressure and heart rate. Which was pretty low. Finally i was able to meet a nurse and get to the bottom of the red spots/lump conundrum.

She didn't really give me any kind of direction, i wasn't sure if i was suppose to just drop trou, or lay on this bed which would be kind of awkward since the spots are on my back. So, i sat on the bad and dropped trou. She took one look at them and knew exactly what they were.

"you have herpes"

...

how the hell do i have herpes, i sat there thinking. She then went into a bit more detail. "Herpes Zoster".

...

how the hell do i have herpes zoster, better yet, what IS herpes zoster.

she told me to sit down and she'll bring in some reading so we can talk about it.

hmm

moments later she arrived... and told me "its also called 'shingles'"
great... shingles...
she was a bit surprised i wasn't in more pain, me too, my aunt had the virus and she couldn't move. She also told me best bet would be to just 'wait it out' for another week or so.

Shingles can 'pop-up' due to stress, its the same virus that causes chicken pox, with that, i can now give people who never had chicken pox, chicken pox but not shingles. The lump is a battle between the virus and self. I think. she didn't really talk much about the lump.

so there you have it. my date with zoe aka zoster. For pictures of shingles just do an image search, be warned, they are a bit 'disgusting' so heres some house shingles... bit easier on the eyes...

A Few Loose Things

So this is the final wee of classes here at SUNY Buffalo, and today was insanity. 2 finals and 1 paper due, tomorrow, yet another paper due. This weeks grand total: 3 finals, 2 papers and 10 hours of sleep. With 2 more finals to go May 7 and 8. This guy above has the right idea.

Anyway in other news... I am leaving for Alaska on May 18th for the entire summer, I'll be working at Denaile national park. Hopefully if I can figure it out I will be broadcasting a video blog from the land of the midnight sun to show people what goes on up there, it's all new to me.

Finally some review for everyone, because that seems to be what I do other than bitch about stupid things...

Let's talk about Spring Fest 2007...

Sunday April 22nd, UB hosted their annual spring fest featuring: Guster, Jason Mraz, Finger 11, Juxaposse, and The Roots. Before I dive into the concert review I'd like to take this time to give credit where credit is due, the mini carnival outside of Alumni Arena was awesome. Free games, free food, free energy drinks, free everything! I especially like the bongie run and bouncy boxing. We cleaned up at all the games as well, winning a total of 20 something stuffed animals. After getting my ass kicked in the boungy run by my roommate, I challenged him to an over sized boxing match where I proceeded to pummel him until he gave up.

Inside, the fee stuff kept coming, free organic chap stick, free organic smoothies, free Ben and Jerry's ice cream, oh yeah and the bands played as well. I'll make this short and sweet...

First up Juxaposse, they won the UB battle of the bands, how? I do not know. A bunch of white kids performing reggae and Bob Marley covers, I don't think so, you guys suck...

Next Finger 11, I think everyone knows these guys, a blend of Creed, Nickel Back and all those other annoying bands. Their intro said something about the show "rocking every part of your body" the only thing it rocked was an old man in a chair. I rock out harder to Kids Bop...

The 3rd band of the night hailed from somewhere up north they go by the name Guster. Associated with the new school hippies, these old men put on a pretty decent show. I'm not by any means a Guster fan, but I was that night. They were really the only band that had it together up there...

The Last band I stayed to see was Jason Mraz. I only have one question for him, was it your first time ever performing in front of a crowd? It seemed like everyone was playing off a different set list. Horrible, I would have rather watched a fat guy fart for 40 minutes.

Lastly, I have to say that it didn't seem like any of the bands enjoyed playing in front of a college band (I can't speak for the Roots), except maybe Guster, who brought their campus conscious tour to UB- that's where all the organic stuff came from.

Respect,
Mr. Greg

Happenings

Real life scenario, brought to you in play form. Considered by some to be a fable dealing with moral convictions in the face of technology of your "typical" American young adult.

The scene is set in the main hall of Hochstetter Hall at the University at Buffalo. It is about 7:45 at night, and the author is en route from his physics lecture to his car. The hallway is relativley empty, except for two girls, girl #1 and girl #2. Girl #1: Orange faux-tan skin, jet-black dyed hair. She is wearing leggings underneath a cutoff denim skirt, as well as a sweatshirt with the normal collar cut off, as to expose her orange shoulders and loose bra straps. Her sunglasses remind me vaguely of the compound eye of an insect, spanning from mid-cheek to lower-forehead. Placed in her right ear is a diminutive pink Bluetooth headset, wirelessly connected to her pink Motorola Razr phone. Girl #2: Essentialy identical for all intensive purposes, but without a headset and cellphone (both most likely not visible.)

Girl#1 (Into phone, loudly, Long Island accent): So I think I did OK like there were a couple questions on like theories and stuff but like I dunno, I think I did pretty good cuz I didn't like study or anything. (Phone chatter, through a small, tinny speakerphone.) I KNOW OH MY GOD THAT IS WHAT I THOUGHT and like why is he going to ask THAT question if we didn't ev-- Oh, OK. Yeah I'll be there in a few minutes.

Girl#2 (To girl#1, but a few steps ahead, raspy voice): Why do you have to talk to loud into that thing?

Girl#1 (Pulls device from ear, makes a wet "pop"): Cuz like i'm never really sure if anyone can actually hear me on my bluetooth!

---

So this girl was LOUD. I mean really fucking rude and in-her-own-world loudness. I can see only one single situation in which one of these ridiculous Bluetooth headsets is justified (barely.) That would be whilst driving your car. I say barely justifiable because using a cellphone while driving reduces your ability to drive safely regardless of whether or not your hands are fumbling around with the phone. Not that most of us haven't done it already, but I don't consider myself or most people I know to be those compulsive phone users in the car.

But I was really hoping that after the Sabres killed the Islanders in the quarterfinals last week, that maybe they would take their entire population of slutty, brainless girls that go to school here back to Long Island. But tuesday night I was sadly reminded that this could never have happened.

I was going to make this entry of a bunch of short little babbles about all this funny and other non-funny but interesting other crap that has been going on, but as usual I took off with one idea in a lengthy entry, so I am just going to cut it off there.

Moonie Pie Zappa

Yesterday I had my first run in with a "Moonie," or, what they prefer: Family Federation for World Peace, and it was a doozy.

I had to do all my research after the run in, so if you don't know what i am talking about click here.

I was eating some brunch, and this young girl approached me, 18-20 years old, she had a notebook in hand, kinda resembling a journalist. She asked if she could "ask me some questions" i obliged. Being it was Culture Shock, i had this idea she was representing either the city newspaper or the school and looking to get some input from the student body.

well that changed when she said "we are looking for young peoples take on peace." I was fine answering some questions, honestly. I gave her some background information which included hobbies like: school and film. She sorta "rolled" with film. I was answering questions like: why i like film, what it means to me, etc... looking back in hindsight she was trying to make me feel comfortable and bring up a topic that makes me feel "peaceful."

Then out-of-the-blue we talked about God. I couldn't help but think it was a tad "odd" to ask such heavy questions even if they were just for opinion sake.

She than asked "do you think we could create a perfect-peaceful world here on earth?" i said no. she didn't like that answer...

Eventually she popped the question and asked if i would like to go on a "peaceful" retreat - really using that word a lot - she billed it as some spiritual place. I like that. Honestly though, i didn't think there was any kind of hidden agenda. So (regrettably) i gave her my email and phone number. And said i could probably make the retreat tomorrow (sunday). She told me a bus would pick me up and take me to the place and it would also bring me back. She said the place was like a rain forest.

Feeling uneasy with everything i talked to my roommate, who had the same problem, and he told me everything. I then did some research.

Today (sunday) i was suppose to meet her at around 10:00am, i didn't show up, she called me 10 times in a row and leaving two messages.

i don't need to say all the bad things this "cult" does, you can find most of it on Wikipedia. But, they do have a tendency to brainwash college students, and they view their founder (convicted felon) as a God, and they merry off total strangers (where the new husband hits the new wife), and they have a creepy website, parallel to Scientology.

this would have been a very different post had i gone on the bus.

I wrote this article for the paper

Check it out... I helped a friend write this paper...

A UB Graduating Senior Reflects on her First UB Experience

“It’s unacceptable, for the price we pay for on-campus apartments, to live like this!” recalls Amanda Antinoro, a senior psychology/communication major about her first semester at UB. She moved into Flint Village, here at UB in the fall of 2005, “when I first moved into Flint I loved it, close to classes, nice living accommodations, but then…” After living in the newly built Flint Village apartments for a mere 3 weeks she found out she had some unwanted roommates. “The Flint apartments are relatively new,” she adds, “I didn’t think I would find them there, it seems like a sign of squalor to me,” she insists. And indeed it is, the Flint apartments are not even a decade old (completed August 2001) yet some of the apartments are infested with cockroaches. Yes, that’s right cockroaches. “The roach was huge!” she gestures with her hand, “it was this big,” she indicates with her fingers something about the size of a pack of gum. The American cockroach can grow to be up to 1 ½ inches long, and is the largest of house infesting cockroaches.
It’s ability to move fast, slyly and, unsighted also makes it possible for the roach to be permanent guest in most homes it wonders into, the pest is also winged, and quite a capable simmer, making it a threat to many people who would rather not share their space with such a gross insect. Adults can live up to 15 months and according to Ms. Antinoro’s testimony, that bad boy was more than likely close to retirement age, probably on social security. They prefer dark, warm, moist places to nest, and hatch eggs approximately ever 6 to 7 weeks. Roaches also pose health risks to individuals living in infested housing and pest control is extremely difficult, normally left up to professionals.
What did UB housing do to make Amanda’s stay here, better? “Nothing, at first they told me it wasn’t a big deal, then I found out the place across the hall was infested first, and it was known as the ‘roach room,’” she says, “the girls in that apartment had to stay at a hotel for a couple of weeks while the place was bombed, but the came back, and made their way into my place.” Her Flint apartment was previously bombed for roaches too, according to UB and attempts obviously failed. Was she made aware of this before she moved in. “No! I had no idea any of this happened, and I feel I should have been.” Agreed. Amanda eventually petitioned to move out of the infested apartment, but UB was no help. They put her and her roommate up in Flickinger Court town house for three weeks at which time they were told they could move back in or find another place to live, but not with UB help. Disappointed with her experience, she and her roommate found other housing, not infested by roaches.
When I asked other UB students how they felt about the situation they did not blame Amanda’s actions to find other housing. “I think they should have told her about the problem in the first place instead of covering it up,” Tony Curley states a senior civil engineering student states, “I wouldn’t want to live in that either.”
“I don’t think UB handled the situation well, we are totally at their mercy when it comes to on campus housing.” Greg Dennis a junior psychology and English major explains. “They made it seem like it was ok and that is unacceptable,” he adds, “especially UB, they charge us a ton of money to stay here and for that the place should be immaculate, or at the very least roach free.”
According to the terms of agreement for on campus apartments UB can terminate your lease for the following reason, “the student or any guest, visitor or invitee of such student causes or is otherwise responsible for a health or safety code violation…” Are roaches not a health code violation, UB? According to the on campus living handbook, “Complex staff will arrange for regularly scheduled preventative measures. Contact the office with any specific problems.” I venture that the preventative measures don’t work too well.
In closing Amanda proclaims, “I think UB’s housing should reflect the great university that it is, it might be an isolated incident, but it was not the first experience I was looking for, and it was handled horribly.”

Something that annoys me

So, I am sitting here in the library listening to my headphones when a person, who by the way I have never seen here before and I caome here every day, tells me to lower them. Then has the audasity, to eyeball another girl to keep quiet- who by the way also frequents the library everyday- and keeps eyeballing her for about 7 minutes. She wasted more time wining than if she would have just gotten up and moved. Everyone knows the queitest part of Lockwood is the 5th floor. So, mosey on up there little doggy instead of making us all change our normal habits so you can have some quiet. Give me a break, you probably have never been down here before, and then you have the fortitude to tell people who are down here everyday to hush up and turn off their headphones. Fart right on your face.

Respect,
Mr. Greg

Fuck you CNN/NBC

What the F*@^ Does This Poem Mean (poem 1)

{wallace stevens}

Back when I went to Saint John Fisher for a semester, which was... yikes, 2 years ago - i feel like a 44 year old reminiscing events 20 years back in some passive uncomfortable glee "Say, that had to be, gosh, 20 years back when we last were in Michigan, wow, was it really that long ago..?" I took a class, i mentioned before, called English Analysis. Most of the class was derived from short stories and novels with a small portion devoted to poetry. During this portion we broke off into groups and had to come up with our own analysis of a poem assigned to us. My group was assigned "Thirteen Ways of Looking At a Blackbird" By Wallace Stevens (buddy to e.e cummings). Unfortunately i don't have my original analysis, too bad, i remember we got a good grade even though we really struggled with the understanding of the poem, and our best ideas came when we were presenting to the class.

I would like to get your theory on the poem. Its pretty interesting to see what people think, since no one is "wrong," and how we each interpret the poem differently is quite fascinating. (I can't put the whole poem here, its too big, but I'll post a portion of it and you can find the rest here .) Hopefully the poem gets you thinking. A published analysis of the poem can be found here (DOWNLOADS PDF. FILE) by a David Lavery, collector of Steven's work, and is linked to the The Wallace Stevens Journal's website.

Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird

I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.

II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.

III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.

V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.

VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.

-Wallace Stevens

I found a great website today. Actually, I found out about the website through a long session of "Firefox Pimping," the other day. Link below:

Package Mapping

Now, user-based package tracking isn't new, but this site integrates your packages' locations with Google maps, and draws lines, so you can see exactly where your crap is. I ordered some headphones from Woot (another great site,) and I checked the exact status. My headphones left Syracuse at 11:16 this morning. It even adds a graphic of a package with wings floating above the location. So i guess is the next best thing before the packages themselves come with GPS locators right on them. That would be pretty pricy.

But there's a Firefox extension for this website. If I highlight a tracking number, I get an option in the right-click menu to "track package with package mapper," and it takes you right to the site with the courier picked and everything ready. It's a great idea, and I am sure tons of people use this on a daily basis, home business owners, or people who just buy a lot of shit.

I also had the (un)pleaseure of working with Windows Vista finally. My roomate bought a new desktop computer 2 days ago. You can get any kind of computer cheap right now (except Mac's, but don't get me started there, sorry macophiles.) The one downside to this is, they're all running Vista. It's what, 3 months old? Windows XP has been really stable for a few years now, so why change it? Oh right, heavy competition from Mac. Anyhow, first-gen software of this caliber rarely works right because it's so damn complicated (for Microsoft.) And it's just too... cluttery. I'm sure there are many ways for great personalization, but I'm missing the point. I'm missing the point because the computer is choking to run this crap, with all the features, effects and visualizations going on. And this isn't a brand new e-machine or people PC, it's a Compaq with a 3.33 GHz Celeron and 1Gb of ram. Whatever.

Since we all had laptops, our wireless router was good-to-go. Desktops don't come wireless ready unless you add the overpriced internal card, and running an ethernet cable under carpeting in an apartment isn't a good idea. So you go and get a brand new USB wireless adapter. No Vista compatability. And god-forbid you enable your brand new software to have older types of recognition for drivers. It fucked up reading the CD to install anything. (At this point I overtook the mouse in trying to get the internet going. Our apartment is basked 24 hours in a luxurious full bar WiFi signal.) You had to go into the control panel to show a menu of all devices. It shows the fucking adapter right there. After some computer semantic circle-jerking, we were able to manually install the XP drivers and it worked fine. I fucking hate computers.

And people who get huge virus problems on their non-Mac computer, I am thouroughly convinced, either A. have no idea what they are doing, or B. are running the wrong programs for it. McAfee = No fucking way, ever. Norton = No. To get the software that works you have to pay them excessive amounts of money. (And the rumors that these 2 companies make their own viruses for their software.) Plus when my parents had McAfee the updater NEVER WORKED. I use AntiVir. It's FREE. And not a single thing slips by it, ever. There was a partially corrupted file coming in from my downloads of the school hub, and my computer made such a fucking loud beep I nearly shat myself. And it updates in a matter of seconds every day, whatever time I want it too.

And my computer? A sub-$800 Dell Inspiron E1505. Oh, the crap I got when I said I was getting a Dell. Well if you take care of it, and are computer literate you will be fine. I guess there is always the chance you get a bad egg. But that happens a lot with Mac's too... so there you have it. And someone almost shot me when I told them I have a Zune.

Unparalleled video quality and screen size. Plus the brown one has the green haze effect on the outside... it's just great.

(Apologies for the small font, but I write a lot, and I'm trying to make it look less intimidating.)

I wrote the post below before I heard about this...

Today is horrible day, an incredibly horrendous act was committed at a place one would think to be safe. Virginia Tech bore witness today to the worst massacre America has ever seen. 32 people died, 29 are wounded, and somewhere tonight parents/families will never be the same again. On Friday it will be 8 years since the Columbine High rampage, we are once again faced with an act of complete and utter insanity.

I think I speak for the rest of the world tonight when I say, there are fucked up people out there- simple and plain- I can't put it any other way. Guns are a travesty and no matter what laws we pass it will never be enough.

My thoughts and energy go out to the people who died and especially their families that are forever changed because of this horrible act of mankind.

Respect,
Mr. Greg

So Much Bigger

So I'm sitting here thinking... The world... it's fucking huge. Some where on the other side of the planet it's pitch black night, people are sleeping, others are stealing, some people are starving, some don't have a roof over there head and it's pouring rain. On this side of the planet it's raining/snowing and kids are in school, some are skipping, other's getting high, doing all the wrong things, while others strive to be the best. Mean while, in Idaho it's mild, potatoes are being farmed and potato chips are being fried to make someone in Florida morbidly obese.

But, I'm sitting here in front of my lap top, not doing anything. Getting pissed off because of the smallest things. But then I think about the other side of the globe... and it's a loop of thoughts that always come back to the same thing... The world is HUGE!

It's so much bigger than me sitting here doing nothing, it's so much bigger than America, so much bigger than a couple of shady comments, smoke stacks polluting the skies, making ice caps in the Arctic melt and starving polar bears, corporations exploiting people on the other side of the planet so people on this side can get paid (see the circle). It's HUGE!

Babies are being born with silver spoons in their mouths, others are being born with a broken plastic spork. People are dying leaving behind treasures, millions of dollars and others are leaving behind nothing but their word and it in itself is a treasure. Someone is dying from radio active fall out from a bomb dropped over 60 years ago, while life saving surgery is being performed on the man who dropped it.

I could go on forever connecting everything, but what for really...? It's HUGE!

Respect,
Mr. Greg

Remember a few posts back I bitched about something along the lines of this [Taken directly from Your Feet Can Make Thunder]:

"AIDS funds for the parts of Africa hit hardest with HIV/AIDS are essentially wasted. On the same level, in the same villages and towns, the lovely christian missionary preaches abstinence and the evils of condoms. Well there are two things wrong with that. 1. Sex is natural and impossible to prevent in human beings in any culture in any region of the world, and 2. Condoms are the affordable, plentiful, direct method for the prevention of AIDS transmission."

WELL my ultimate vindication came this morning with the release of this scientific study.

You mean to tell me that there is virtually NO impact on sexual behavior resulting from abstinence? Well I'll be damned, I was right. Sex is natural and impossible to prevent in human beings in any culture in any region of the world. Well, I guess it's not impossible, but then we're journeying into another area entirely.

And no, I didn't go looking for this article, it was featured on the Google News main news page.
This article actually was going to reinforce my most recent article, about stem cell research.

---

So apparently our left-ass congress is trying to pass a bill enabling [federally funded] stem cell research, but our right-ass president has pledged an immediate veto. Ah, it feels good to have boyhood memories of learning about how great and effective our bipartisan, three branched government is. Checks and balances my ASS. I will never, ever, ever, in my lifetime pledge any sort of allegiance to any political party. But I can rationalize a democratic president because they want to promote stem cell research (Clinton certainly does.)

But, I will let infamous YouTuber Steve Sutton sum it all up for you (this was originally why I wanted to make a post.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gS1OuSg6rzk

So, find your own damn news articles about it, I'm tired of searching. But that's it right there.

And then I was going to finish this and go to the grocery store, but Nikki was flipping through the TV and I asked her to stop on FoxNews because there was talking about "Charity Chaos." Apparently, there is some funny business behind the (RED) Charity. They say not all the money goes to charity, a lot of it has to fuel the bureaucratic machine that is their "charity." But I still hate FoxNews, so don't be alarmed. That is related to the abstinence article, because it started around how donating to that charity is the cool thing to do.

So I don't know, it's pretty cool I guess. My mind was kinda blown because all of that happened at the same time. Maybe I should wish for things I want on here, and then they'll come true.

Bye for now.

*EDIT: I figured maybe I would go find an article for you. Article is here. Spending 5 times more on marketing than the money actually raised/donated to AIDS in Africa... tsk tsk tsk.

RIng the Bell

I'm sure all of you know, but allow me to give my 98 cents so with your 2 cents we got a dollar.

Don Imus has come into some hot water as of late for comments he made pertaining to the female Rutger's' basketball team members.

His comments included a comparison to a Spike Lee movie "Do the Right the Thing" as well as some other "on the fence" racial remarks. I'm not going to quote anything because I don't feel like listening to Don Imus' voice again.

I absolutely cannot not stand Imus or his radio show, it is far from entertaining and he's about as old Jesus, so trust me, it pains me to say he is not in the wrong.

The other day Reverend Al Sharpton went on one of his tirade, "Don Imus should be fired for his racist comments." After confronting Imus, he retains his position for the radio talk show host to be terminated. Yesterday, Imus' cable television show was cancelled due to the turbulence. Sharpton, as usually shined an unneeded spotlight on a subject that would otherwise probably never make even the back page of any newspaper, now it is headlining news.

I do not like Sharpton much either, I think his philosophies set back civil rights not only for black people, but the human race. As I am a firm believer in the one race mentality, people like Sharpton continue to create conflict amongst people. Sharpton is far from a healthy role model in the fight for equality, how can one have any validity if they make a mountain out of mole hill. It seems if anyone makes a comment that could be considered racist, Sharpton is there to magnify the situation. He looks for racism, and in doing so sets us (everyone) back in the struggle for equality.

Moving on to a much larger topic, FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Firing someone for speaking their mind, Woooo if that isn't an injustice, I don't know what is. I do not in anyway condon racism, but no one should loose their job, especially a radio personality for making comments that can be misconstrued as racist. If someone makes a blatant racist comment in a threatening manner, then yes I would prefer to see that individual terminated, but Imus' job is to talk, journalists' job is to report, our First Amendment is designed to protect us, and people like Sharpton turn our words around and present them in a manipulated fashion, denying us our freedom.

Needless to say, Imus is receiving the brunt of the backlash. As long as race continues to be a delicate subject, we will go nowhere in our fight to achieve equality. Thanks Reverend.

Respect,

Mr. Greg

Good Day- My First Book

Well, well, well...
Today is a good day, I finally received my first book. When I say my first book, I mean my first book. I submitted some poems for this visual art thing (not really sure what), but they used the poems to make a little book. It's really cool, it has an old style feel to it. It's probably as close as I'll ever get to having a real book, but none-the-less it feels good.

Respect,
Mr. Greg

Free Hot Dogs and Beer with Every Gram of Harvested Stem Cells!

...in our administration's eyes anyway. But really, how could someone with such a poor grasp of the english language graduate from Yale University?

Sorry. So, anyone still think stem cells are the biological equivalent of the death penalty?

"But Jeff, dont u no that evry stem cell is a little baby whos life was wasted for youre persuit of scientistic tyranny?" Translation: I see your point sir, but my rebuttal to said theory is that for each and every individual stem cell harvested, a precursor to a human life form must suffer, and will therefore not be allowed to blossom into the person they were destined by god to be.

EX-cept that god (I should be capatilizing that, huh?) was not a fucking molecular biologist, was he/she/it? Now, I'm not a fan of asking rhetorical questions in order to prove a point, but really folks.

From this point on please, shrug off all religious connotations and biblical passages. We all know what page the author is on, so there needn't be any further fussing over anyone's moral obligations and/or religious convictions. But, the truth is that human stem cells are THE new crack for the scientific research community. Physiologists, bioligists and chemists alike can't seem to get enough of them. Litearally, seeing how stem cell research is severly limited in this country. You ask why stem cells are the newest biological addiction? Well, they are the answer. To everything medical, really.

An australian article I happened across today (found here,) briefly describes a new trial in which stem cells were harvested from the bone marrow of patients with type-1 diabetes mellitus, and the cells transplanted (not sure where or how from the article.) Net results: no insulin needed for 3 years. Talk about a fucking medical breakthrough! The impact of this is going to be huge. Who knows what other diseases can be cured - Duschenne's Muscular Dystrophy, maybe even Alzheimers disease. Take a stem cell, which is undifferentiated, and plop is down in a culture of any kind of human tissue you choose. You want to grow some more liver cells, you got yourself some fucking liver cells sonny. But at what price? Well, one that many people don't think is worth paying. The issue of harvesting stem cells from human embryos has been stunted, perhaps for a long time. It just gives us an annex to the abortion issue. Another shutoff to this research is the potential that it could lead to human cloning (which, full human cloning really isn't a great idea.)

But that's just what our science and technology does for our society. At the base level, it just introduces a completely new issue nobody saw coming, and expects a greatly divided society to figure it out.

One more apology about how these articles are so convoluded and long. I am sitting here as my brain just cascades down the river of causality, like what would happen if humans were cloned, etc. This artcle's main function was to show the huge benefit that using human stem cells can bring, and to elaborate some silly details about the social issues found within. And now I have to go to class, which sucks a little bit.

Righting Write - Personal entry for your enjoyment

(e.e cummings)

I love writing. I really do. I love writing because i can tell a story. I can try my best to make the reader feel the same emotion i felt. Though writing is not always for the public consumption. I written, and still continue to write, hundreds of poems that no one has read, its not like they are too intense, its just the point of the poetry was my escape. I started writing short stories and poetry when i was about 15 years old. Thanks to the romantic writings of e.e cummings (still my favorite poet). Now i have notebooks upon notebooks (most are not used up) of my poetry and story ideas, ranging from a sentence to a few pages. My poetry was never grammatically correct (as it shouldn't be) but writing at that young age i concentrated more on the idea of capturing the emotion than having sound sentences. So needless to say i didn't do to hot in English class. Wasn't until college when i took a creative writing class where the purpose was emotion, not grammar. I took 2 creative writing classes, one at MCC the other at Fisher and got A's in both of them. Even my boring formal writing classes have improved, B+ in a English response class while at Fisher. Still, when i am writing formal there is this nervousness chugging through me. Common thoughts would be:

Does a comma belong here, or am i splitting two independent clauses?
Am i writing past tense? (tenses were a huge issue in younger grades)
Am i making any sense?
Run ons?

To remedy these thoughts and feelings i bought a book (the elements of style) i subscribed to a grammar help podcast called: Grammar Girls quick and dirty tips.

They help. But my confidence while writing formal is so much smaller than if i were writing creatively. And i notice i have a harder time putting my thoughts on paper if they are more formal based than compared to a story i have or a poem i am thinking about that has an encrypted message against divorce. I get bored when i am writing about something that isn't my own thoughts.

I shouldn't worry. I am taking this class called: Writing About Cities. Its a journalism class where i have to report and talk about changes a city is facing ie: closing of a store or a redevelopment of a street. All the issues where directed towards NYC, something i am not comfortable writing about at all since i don't know the city at all. So, i talked with my teacher and she now wants me to write about my experience getting to know the city. Right up my ally. These were (are) fun papers to write, i am writing creatively again. She said she wants a copy on my experience with Times Square. Getting these stories back and seeing i got all As on them really made me think...

how do i do this for a profession? Poetry? sure, i could write poems for a publishing company, but i don't think thats something you walk into. Screen-Plays? my ultimate dream, next to directing, but again i don't think i can just walk into it (won't stop me from writing screen plays though). Reviews? could be a good bet. Reporting? eh, its more formal, with a sprinkle of creativeness. Song-writing? if only i had a good voice.

At the risk of sounding like some self-help guru. We are young. These years are young. We do what we love. What makes us happy. What makes us grow. Getting those papers back made me realize (even more) that i want to be creative. Now its time to do just that...

FIGHT TERRORISM (with AOL)

I wish I could make this shit up:





(Click on the image to view animated web banner.)

A Couple of Things

First things first...

A little concert review for your reading pleasure. Last night I found myself at a fantastic show, I've been a champion of this band for about a year, mainly because their first album dropped last spring and they are a newly formed band. But, none the less they are awwwwwesome!!!!

They put on a funtastic show, from their low budget neon light mic stands to the strobe lights causing seizures to the electronic dance revolution of their melodies. Check them out right here.

The opener was Bedoine Sound Clash, sorry boys- thumbs down. Enough said.

One thing that pissed me off however, was the planning between my friends and I and my work place. First off, one of the assistant managers wined about the fact that I was taking the night off with ONE WEEKS NOTICE, apparently to her this was not enough warning- FUCK YOU. The head cheese already gave me the night off then she wined about it so I said I'd work until 7:30ish at which time my friend Matt would pick me up. Anyways, I didn't get out till about 8 at that point I was a little mad about the whole thing, but I got a little more mad when we had to figure out who was DRIVING, AHHHHHHH! But, it was ironed out and it all went down.

Secondly, or lastly if you will, my latest installment of funny music, people that should be signed just because. I'm sure nobody looked at the last band, so I thought I'd bring to you a local act... Hailing from Rochester, NY.... Sound the trumpets.... King Coochie and Count Nigula. Once again here's the myspace link here you go . My favorite is the Coocher, notable lines "It's orgasmic, when I use a condom I use paper not plastic"

Respect,

Mr. Greg

Politics

There seems to be a current trend here: politics. We are young, full of ideas, smart, fierce, sexy people. Who have multiple threesomes a week with domestic issues and international issues, but we have a steady relationship with local issues. So, it only makes sense to post politics... Yes... I'm about to post politics.

I was going to talk about The Global Gag Rule, but instead... Deal Or No Deal!I figure millions-billions-trillions of 'bloggers' (ugh) have tackled Deal or No Deal. Making fun of the shallowness, lack of skill, hot-women, and the spazzing out contestants. So, I don't see a need for my commentary. Instead i am going to hunt, and find these bloggers and post them here. Deal or No Deal - you're going down...

What i found may disturb you...

Blogger Number One

-Yes, i know. I am having a hell of a time trying to find people who don't like it. Amazing. All Deal or No Deal is, is a guessing game, do you really think Howie remembers every single girls name, theres no way. Since i can't find a video of him spewing out a random name, here are just utterly random D.O.N.D videos. click the image!

(Howie being a hero)

(...)

I would rather see a live T.V version of guess who (actually that would be pretty sweet), than watch models open up a suitcases and show a random number, to a flipping out contestant who stares off at their family as they yell.. DEAL. And don't even get me started with the "banker." This show is strictly politics. I can' think of a clever way to tie this all up, so, good bye.
and click here

These Goddamn Kids and Their Ideas

Nothing really can compare to good old internet satire. Maddox puts out another funny April fool's webpage, but this time there is a lack of trying to make it look real (to a degree.) I would imagine that soon after this article is published, the link given above will go back to the usual site, but I imagine it to be archived somewhere.

Right, so - the notion of the Titanic as being a conspiracy is beyond silly. Simply fucking unbelievable, to be specific. Yet, I pity the poor bastard who fell for it, or at least bought into the idea that someone was being serious. (I found it hilarious that the graphs used on one of the "Truth" pages were taken from structural analysis of the World Trade Center steel beams. It doesn't outrightly say it anywhere, but they're talking about the shear strain of steel at certain temperatures...)

And it's just these sorts of people/ideas that find their way into and pollute the community pool of knowledge and ideas. Ignorant people clutching dearly to that one scrap of information that may look as though it debunks an entire situation as we know it. Trying to contrive some story and some fear-based initiative against the government from a few frames of grainy videos, and hearsay.

In science, when you want to want to experimentally get the most accurate results for your hypothesis, you would want to take a large sample size. I believe that this works philosophically, too.

Lets say, for example, we're going to try and determine the guidelines for human blood composition. Plasma and then the actual cells. A quick and easy guideline that can be used is to run a PCV (packed cell volume, see Hematocrit,) and a chart used to yield a number. So you obtain small amounts of blood from, lets say yourself, a colleague, and a family member. You will have obtained three very different values. This level is independent on body size, which makes sense, but it is dependent and can change on several values. Sex, menstruation, disease (even minor undetectable influences,) and the like. Age can be a slight factor, too. So in your quest to determine the typical human PCV, you have obtained no close values.

The immediate source error is sample size. If you compile data from thousands of people, and finding an average. And if you're adventurous, you'd see that getting data from hundreds of thousands of people would produce an extremely accurate set of values. So accurate that it allows you to divide up average values into subgroups, like a value for women, and another for men.

So, for all of you amateur conspiracy theorists and those obsessed with the end-all-be-all "smoking gun" for every single natural disaster or social event, there you have it. You're rushing to conclusions. I can understand people feeling strongly on an issue, and not being able to explain why, just saying "because," for one reason or another. But you need to be where the facts are. You need to be able to read all the hard data on whichever interchangeable socio-economic* saga is at hand.

The more data you sample, the more accurate your conclusion. Nobody said, however, that it had to match (or even come close to,) your hypothesis.

So, before you make the documentary on how you can identify the detonation sequence of explosives down the destroyed World Trade Center tower 2, think more. Read it all, watch it all. Not that I am ever going to put people on what side I see as being true, but at least I can offer some kind of suggestion on how to handle what you see/hear. It really is difficult to weed out the people telling the truth in a world filled with liars, so you can't always believe anything you want to, I know. This is just proof of concept at how difficult believing in something can be. I wouldn't dare start talking about relative truths versus an absolute truth, but that would be valid here. So, if you really believe that the United States government launched a cruise missile into the pentagon, that's fine, (only because if I said it wasn't I would be a hypocrite.) In the end, you are going to believe what you want to believe, despite all fact and fiction.

*Global warming, September 11th, the Iraqi war, Darfur, religion, the death penalty, abortion, immigration, gay marriage, and the list goes on.