¶ here in the real world

I was up til about 3 AM this morning watching Bible documentaries. There was two hours on the Apocrypha, which was really enjoyable, then another hour on Heaven and Hell, which left me kind of empty. Probably I just think about Hell way too much, and it didn't have anything left to surprise me with.

Speaking of Hell, today sucked. It started off, innocently enough, with coffee at that coffee place with Lauren and Derrick. I really do love Irish cream. Anyway, they left around noon to go hang around with his family, and I lurched about the house for four or so hours. Suring that time, I spiffed and groomed myself for Chase's big, important shindig, which faces from my past were primed to attend. I clipped my nails, mussed my hair, got all glammy in this black goth shirt I love so much, and put on a pair of green pants. I was illustrious.

It was all set to start at 4 PM. I was planning to be fashionably late, so I didn't leave until 3:50. Just as I was heading out, my dad asked me to turn in the movie rentals, which would be a prefect time-killer on my way over there. So I dropped off the movies, and headed out to Central.

I was the first one there, which was ridiculous, because it was nearly 4:30. Whatever. Some other guy pulled in five minutes later, and the three of us went over to the service station to buy ice. Ice. It was a party, oh God, it was a party.

Before I go any further, it might be helpful to elucidate what Chase Mitchell means by a "party." Basically, a bunch of people who have either never met before or haven't seen each other in months (if not years) but share a connection of some kind with Chase all sit around on couches trying to out-wry the last person's wry comment about whatever Eddie Murphy or Jim Carrey movie happens to be coming through in surround sound. I thought I could participate in this sport fully, but I rapidly came to realize that my wryness was of a slightly more subtle variety than was common to the assembled. I mostly shut up, but every now and then I took a shot and sounded idiotic. After a while, it became easier to keep quiet.

At odd moments (in between movies, while up to get a drink), I did manage to get a smattering of conversation with someone I knew. For example:

Brandi: Ryan! How's it going?

Ryan: You know... the way it goes.

And cut! Brandi was a girl I met through Tina. She was a neighbor.

The only person I managed a real discussion with was Jennifer Braaten, who is weird about kissing Stirling's feet, and who had just spent a semester abroad in England. I asked her what she was taking over there, and she responded that she had taken some religion classes. At this point, it was clear enough she was baiting me into a discussion; Jennifer has been a militant agnostic for as long as I've known her. Normally I would have jumped all over it, thinking, "At last! Intelligent conversation." But, surveying the room, it was clearly not the place for two agnostics of varying intensities to hold a religious debate. I let it slide and actually succeeded in giving the impression that I could care less what she had to say about religiosity.

After we had watched Bruce Almighty and The Goonies the girls (a group which included Jennifer and Brandi, the only two people at this whole thing I even knew) left to go look at Brandi's new apartment. They promised to meet up for bowling afterwards. I decided it would be better not to even say anything about having no intention of bowling ever and let them leave without saying goodbye. I continued to sit on the couch and stew while Chase and the fellas put on an Eddy (sp?) Izzard stand-up comedy DVD.

I'll tell you right now that this cross-dressing, British history buff is hilarious, though I still can't stand for the decision to buy a stand-up comedy recording (memories of my elementary school friend, Mike, and his Jeff Foxworthy cassettes abound). Unfortunately, being the only history buff in attendance, I was also the only one who got most of the jokes, and often laughed borderline-hysterically, all alone, for minutes at a time, before he said something obvious about Hitler, and the whole place chuckled politely.

When they were finally ready to go bowling, I got the fuck out of there. I would have left earlier (the laughing all alone, was sort of embarassing), but, being the first one to have arrived, I was blocked in the driveway by everybody. On the way home, I screamed along with a few songs I didn't know, and when "Interstate Love Song" came on as I pulled into my neighborhood, I turned it up and drove around the block til it was over, singing as loudly and badly as I could. It was past 10 PM at that point, which made it a decent release of pent up hatred for all things middle school.

Going to these things is probably good for me. Going back makes me remember exactly why I hated it so much the first time around, only now I can see through it, into the subtext, and know what's actually going on. I'm not so puzzled anymore, but I hate it just the same.

¶ reading: The Iliad - Homer

¶ watching: Bruce Almighty, The Goonies

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 11:27 PM

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¶ i hate

how I have to wear shoes into the bathroom right before I go to bed because the pipes leak, and if I don't, my socks will be cold and stick to my feet.

¶ reading: The Iliad - Homer

¶ watching: Identity

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 12:35 AM

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¶ today is a day for critiques

I have several things I want to critique today. Just so I don't forget them, I'm going to list them all up front: 1) the Hitchhiker's Guide books, 2) The Two Towers movie, 3) family life.

OK, the Hitchhiker's Guide books. I think they're pretty good. They're not well-constructed or even very coherent a lot of the time, but the characters are strangely endearing. Adams has a penchant for throwing away characters that are getting in the way by introducing things like random hyperspace accidents and the like, which can get a little obvious. If I was being completely charitable, I might suggest that in doing this, he is expressly exposing the bare bones of the literary craft to scrutiny... but I'm not sure I believe that. It just seems like a convenient thing to do. Many of the threads of the story are never settled until the last of the five books, and some are never adequately ended. Still, and this is the important part, I think that the success or failure of a work of science fiction or fantasy is measured by how saddened the reader is that the story isn't true - and in that at least, it was a success. At the end, I found yself wishing it was real, that that was the way the universe worked.

Summary judgment: Good books. It should take maybe two nights to get through each one. Read 'em if you think you could get into a whimsical sci-fi story that makes no pretensions to self-consistency. Just don't go around like one of those idiots who likes to loudly proclaim, "The answer to the ultimate question is 42!" or start using the phrase "Paranoid Android" while feeling particularly clever. If you do either of these things, I will hate you forever.

Alright, now for the movie critque. The battle scenes in this movie are really excellent. Nothing else in it is very good at all. CGI Gollum is ridiculous - I never liked him in the previews, and now I completely loath him. The jumps between the stories of the various characters are incredibly awkward. Even when I first read the books, and the idea occured to me of cinematizing them, I rejected the idea because of the awkwardness of the time scale, particularly in The Two Towers. Turns out I was completely right, and that Peter Jackson did nothing about it. The acting was bad. Don't get me wrong, I like Elijah Wood, and maybe its just because Frodo is such a pansyish character, but... I don't even know how to phrase my disappointment... it just doesn't do anything for me. Sam, Gandalf, and every once in a while Aragorn are the only characters who come off as real to me. Gimli was basically reduced to comic relief and all Legolas did was say really obvious things (the view of him running through the hills and pausing in front of the camera to say, "Orcs... I can smell them," will haunt me forever).

Summary judgment: it basically sucked. I can't imagine how anyone who hasn't read the books could possibly follow the amalgamous mess belched forth in this movie. The best thing about it was the unending supply of short-jokes about Gimli. Also, there is one scene at the end (in which Sam muses about whether there will be stories about himself and Frodo) that can serve as a sort of modernist critique. Unlike everyone else in the story, Sam, and arguably the other hobbits, are aware of being in a story, precisely because they don't know how to relate to the events going on around them as anything but a story. It's one of those Shakespearean "The play's the thing" moments, where art and life get eerily mixed up, and the audience is forced to wonder just which side of the divide are they on anyway? That's in the book though, and almost certainly done better there.

Alright, on to family life. Let me give some backstory here: Lauren and Derrick are in Dallas with Derrick's cousin to see Jane's Addiction. At this moment, I could not tell you why I wasn't able to come along. Never mind that I'm the only one out of the three of us who actually owns a Jane's Addiction CD. Never mind that I'm the only one among us not prone to say, "Jane's Addiction sucks," or, "They're not so great." Never mind that winter break is just about the only time I could possibly go see a concert out of state. Never mind all that. But I am good enough to drive Lauren's fucking car out to fucking Port Allen so she'll have something to fucking drive to fucking work in the fucking morning. My mom and I had to take two cars out there and then I had to drive the two of us back with her blabbing about nothing all the way home while giving me bad directions on how to get back to the interstate. Bleh. In my experience, if I can't make it to work because my friends are assholes and leave Dallas late and can't give me a ride back to my house, I chalk it up to my own stupidity and call in sick. It's not my fucking family's job to bail me out of trouble, help me buy new cars, get new insurance on them, and then buy other new cars and get other new insurance when I wreck that one.

And also, my mom talks too much, and to herself, and to nobody who gives a fuck. While I'm trying to watch a movie, she'll walk through and start bitching about her day, and telling me about how generally worried about general things she is, and being an altogether morbid person to be around. And my dad lays around the house and says things that would have been clever thirty years ago, but he never got to say them back then because he just thought of them today. Still, he's the best one out of the bunch, because he's the only one who has any shot at holding on to a genuinely educated topic of discussion.

Summary judgment: avoid having families if at all possible.

Anybody want to get together, go do something sometime soon? I hate this fucking place.

¶ reading: The Iliad - Homer

¶ watching: Confidence, The Two Towers

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 11:27 PM

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¶ the rosy-fingered dawn

I slept in today. I was up til about 4 this morning playing guitar and watching reruns. It was alright. I'm glad I'm practicing again. I probably picked up the guitar about 5 times all during the semester. I actually had something that kinda halfway rocked, until I realized that it was the rhythm line to Ocean Size by Jane's Addiction.

Oh well. I made some other stuff up too.

I got up around noon and watched the second half of Harvey with my dad. Jimmy Stewart's thought for the day: "When I was a boy, my mother told me, 'Elwood... in this world, you have to be oh-so-smart or oh-so-pleasant.' Well, I was smart for years... I recommend pleasant."

Something about moralizing in old movies just seems to fit perfectly. I don't know, old films just feel so much more like theater - like the writers didn't think about people ever being able to watch them over and over again. The way they wear their theme on the sleeve is endearing.

I had some chili for lunch and messed around with music for a while. Mom asked me if I'd go with her to Baker Music and help her look for a Christmas present for Derrick. There was very little there that I could be sure he needed, and I couldn't remember what weight strings he uses. So I told Mom our best bet was to try Barnes and Noble.

So we drove out that way. She ended up getting him a book chronicling the evolution of rock 'n' roll through journalism and another Kurt Cobain book. Personally, I think the poor guy already has about 4 too many Kurt Cobain books.

[Side note: while we were browsing the shelf of Kurt Cobain books, an extremely ugly blond girl came up and stroked Kurt's face on the cover of one of the books. Pretty scary.]

I snuck off around this time and found a beautiful edition of the Iliad that I couldn't possibly live without, so I bought it. It's a grayish-purple hardback clothbound Everyman's Library edition. It's gorgeous. (Anyone can buy me a book published by Everyman's Library anytime).

I had forgotten how much I hated Agamemnon. What a jerk.

Besides all that, I've spent the last few days mostly working on my ranking system - now that I've got Excel installed on my computer. It would still be a lot easier if my computer was hooked up to the net though. Doesn't matter I guess - I've actually been a little sidetracked because of ESPN's Bowl Mania promotion: score the most points picking the winners of each bowl, and you win a trip for two to the bowl game of your choice next season. Motivated by that, I've been trying to expand my system to accomodate game predictions as well as rankings.

So far, I've been through three prediction schemes. Just as an example, I'll tell you what each one predicted for the Sugar Bowl. The first (very rough) scheme favored Oklahoma at 55% and predicted a score of around 18.5-27.8 Oklahoma. The second scheme favored LSU at a whopping 75%, and predicted a score of 21-14 LSU. My most recent scheme (very complicated, uses standard deviations on top of standard deviations - there's a triple-or-so integral involved) favors LSU at 60% and predicts a score of 22-21 LSU.

Interestingly, only my first, rough method actually meshes with my own personal predictions. Still the math involved in the latest system is too beautiful to ignore, so I think I favor it anyway. Basically, I'm going to measure the successes of my predictions against those of Massey and if mine are about as good as his, I'll be happy.

¶ reading: Mostly Harmless - Douglas Adams, The Iliad - Homer

¶ watching: Harvey

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 9:38 PM

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¶ you're an instant winner!

Today has been a blogworthy day, so I've decided to blog before I forget. It all started Monday night I guess, when I opened some mail addressed to me, and discovered that I was an instant scratch-and-win winner at Superior Ford's Sale of the Century. My scratched-off number matched the one printed on the upper right hand corner of my card. Having done share of computer programming, I knew just how easy it was to make the numbers match on every single card, so I was skeptical. I read and reread the rules: "If your numbers match, you're an Instant Winner!!!" Right. Sure. Still, that kind of up-frontness didn't leave them much wiggle-room in terms of interpretation as far as I could see.

I looked at the prizes. A five-piece luggage set. A 25-inch color TV. A video camcorder. A $500 gift certificate to goshoppingmall.com. A 2004 Quad Cab Ford F-150.

That's very tempting, I thought. A chance at a brand new truck (which I never thought for a second about keeping, even if I should win it - it translates to 20-odd thousand dollars, which is a great way to pay off loans, go to Greece, and start off paying for grad school).

So that weas it. Next time I got a chance, I decided, I'd go down to Superior Ford and find out how they would mutilate the rules into informing me that I had won nothing and would win nothing (my best guess was that there would now be a drawing of some kind - but it was much more insidious).

Today was the day I went. I was not unprepared for being hit up to buy a car. On the way over, I created the car I already owned in my mind, so I wouldn't have to feel bad for shooting the salesman down. It would just be that I loved my present ride so much. I walked up to a lady sitting at a long folding table with several sheets of paper taped to it. I said, "I got this in the mail," indicating my scratch-off instant winner card. "How does this promotion work?"

"I'll go get somebody to help you," she said.

I didn't like the sound of that. While she was away, I read one of the taped down sheets of paper. It was a list of what matching numbers corresponded to what prizes. Mine was for the $500 gift certificate, which was a little disappointing (it would become much more disappointing soon).

Then a fat man came up to me from across the room and shook my hand. He said, "Follow me. I'll take you to Shawn."

So I followed him, and he told me to get on his little golf cart thing. We rode across the parking lot and then across the street to where the used cars were sitting. Then the fat man told Shawn to get on back, and the three of us rode back to the main lot.

I had a sneaking suspicion that these two guys were about to try to ass-rape me, but the sensation passed. Turned out they only wanted to figuratively ass-rape me, by getting me to fork over money I didn't have on a car I didn't want. So I told them about my imaginary car, a steely-silver 1999 Mazda 6 with 50,000 miles that was almost paid for. As I expected, this did not get rid of them. The fat man went away, but Shawn began looking up the trade-in value of a 1999 Mazda 6 with 50,000 miles. He handed me my gift certificate, and started up his pitch. I sat there politely until he was done, then said, "No thank you," and walked away. He tried to tell me the gift certificate would only be activated after I had signed on a car, an idea which had crossed my mind earlier, and caused me to give an "oh well"-shrug. He was a ridiculously bad salesman. He told me he'd give me $50 if I referred someone to him by name. He tried to give this offer an under-the-table kind of urgency. I left.

I met my Mom for lunch at Cactus Cafe afterwards. I had the tamales, which were good. I told her about my experience, and she said that was to be expected, as indeed it was.

Back here at home, I decided to try my gift certificate, on a hunch that Shawn was full of it when he said it wouldn't be activated unless I bought a car. I was right, which turned out to be depressing. I went to goshoppingmall.com (link above), and registered and all. Then I thought about what I'd like to buy. I typed "guitar" into the search box. No results, which was depressing, but not surprising. I tried "mp3 player." Still no results. This was more surprising. I tried "book." Nothing. Ridiculous. I tried "shirt." It found nothing.

At that point, I decided the search feature must not be working, and decided to browse throught the clothing section, if only to prove to myself that they did indeed carry shirts. But they didn't. Everything they sold was leather. "Authentic Leather!" it said in bold, blue, underlined letters. Buying leather clothing was not something that had ever crossed my mind before, because I never thought I would want to waste my money on it. They had a few nice jackets, a Spike-esque tench coat, even a leather baseball cap (absurd!). I stared at one of the jackets for a while, before deciding that anything that claimed to be authentic as vehemently as this did was probably completely fake, and that I felt kind of bad for cows.

I browsed around some more, finding nothing but a bunch of tools, a display case for holding samurai swords, a radio with lips that move with the beat of the music you're listening to, a 7-in-1 game set, and some dishes. It was at that point that I realized that this gift certificate had probably only cost Superior Ford $200, because the good folks at goshoppingmall.com knew that no one could ever spend $500 on their shitty merchandise in one sitting (the certificate can only be used once - that is, you have to spend al $500 at one time or you lose the remainder). Tricky-ass bastards.

¶ reading: Life, the Universe, and Everything - Douglas Adams

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 2:34 PM

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¶ run, run away

Today was pretty awful. The phone rang pretty steadily. Lauren is applying for new jobs, and I got to be her answering service.

So, to escape that monotony, I started my running. I didn't stretch; I was just so fed up with the goddamn phone that I just walked out the door and started running. I was halfway around the block before I managed to get my breathing into a rhythm that didn't involve a violent gasp for air every six or seven steps. By that time, my throat was killing me, but my legs felt like they could have gone on forever. It goes to confirm my theory that dry, cool air is not the sort of air that should be expected to support life. About four-fifths of the way around the block I just said fuck it, and started walking. I went back inside, turned on the fan, hyperventilated like a pansy for a while, then drained an orange Crush, which did nothing to alleviate the pain in my throat. After a few minutes, I got in the shower. I don't know if it was the heat of the water, or the running, or the orange Crush, or the combination of the three, but within seconds of stepping in, I suddenly realized that i was about to vomit like a motherfucker. I pulled back the shower curtain, did a flying leap over the side of the tub, my head landed directly over the toilet, where I threw up roughly 4.5 times. Luckily, I had nothing in my stomach but the orange Crush, so I was greeted by a recognizable flavor each time, rather than the normal digested amalgam vomit taste.

So anyway, eveybody who reads this thing knows more about exercising than I do. Where exactly did I go wrong? I ask because there is a slight chance that despite all this, I might try again tomorrow.

Now for political commentary: the Bush administration wants to give jobs rebuilding Iraq only to companies who supported the war? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. It basically amounts to bribery - "Go along with us, we'll make it worth your while." This belies one of the main problems I have with today's Republican party: they treat politics in terms of profit. The appropriate way to dole out these jobs of rebuilding is to give them to the companies who can demonstrate the best ability to succeed in them, whithout regard for whether or not they supported war. It is a companies job to do something - they should be rewarded for doing it well, not for their palatable political views.

¶ reading: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe - Douglas Adams

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 10:32 PM

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¶ Mithridates VI

Yesterday afternoon, right around 4:30, I decided to check the weather forecast for today. 90% chance of thunderstorms it says. Learning this, I decided it would be safest to move out of the dorm a day early, so that I would know I could transfer my computer in the safety of non-saturated air. I called Mom to see if that was cool - it was - and began packing up my stuff, and doing the things that need doing when vacating the dorm (i.e. - eating the last few slices of pizza in the fridge). By 5 pm, I was good to go.

(It bothers me slightly that my lifestyle lends itself so readily to being packed up and moved home in a bout half an hour).

So bach here I set up my computer, played around with it (FF7, SM64), then got down to the business at hand, studying for my World of Xander exam. I did what I could do, and gave up at midnight. It was all in the hands of fate then.

I got up this morning around 8 am, showered, and had a bowl of cereal. Lauren gave me a ride to LSU, where I picked up a Blue Book, and headed to my exam.

I never get nervous for a test, a trait which served me well, seeing as most people who had prepared as little as I had would be overcome with anxiety as they awaited the exam questions. I don't know what it is - I think I just take it on faith that I can handle whatever anybody throws at me.

And I did. I'm not saying it was great. But it was of the same level of quality that I've put out consistently in that class: 88ish. Possibly better. I doubt I'll be disappointed with my grade in there.

After the test, I talked to a few of my classmates about it, discovered that I probably did at least as well as any of them, and then witnessed one of them smoke his last cigarette ever before dumping the rest of his pack out into the palm of his hand and breaking them in half. Good for him.

So since then, I've been hanging around the house, playing video games, interspersed with reading this Hitchhiker's Guide thing. It is decidedly not all it's cracked up to be, though it's at least clever enough to keep me turning pages. Not to mention that I've only brought home so many books worth of material I haven't already read.

Monday I hope to start running, what with the feeling good afterwards and all.

¶ reading: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 9:49 PM

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¶ paid

It's been a while. I'll skip the boring details and fill in the important stuff. Got a 102 on my poetry exam, giving me an A. American History was harder, but not significantly. I may have gotten as low as a high B on the final, but I scored well on all the bonus quizzes, so I should have an A regardless. Logic was a breeze. I was a machine.

The logic exam was today at 12:30, so that brings us up to date. I was feeling preppy this morning, so I dressed preppily. After the exam was over I waited for a while for Sean to finish. While I was waiting, Dr. Cogburn came out and we talked about vagueness and Roman history and whether or not I was in a fraternity and my take on baseball caps (they're alright). When Sean was done, I gave him his Christmas present, which was the Bayeux Tapestry tie from The Library of Congress. We chilled (literally) in front of the Union for a while and talked about football, Buffy stuff, and the fact that the presents I buy for others are often aimed at making them better people (which I take as a compliment). When it got too cold, we moved it back to the dorm lobby, where we continued talking and annoyed some people who were trying to study. I like to think that it was just that our topics were so interesting that they found it impossible to focus on anything else, but, more likely, it was seething hatred.

Eh.

After he left, I ate some pizza and played some more Mario 64 (98 stars, bizatch!). Blake called around 9, and was really bored, so I invited him over. Come to find out once he got here, all he wanted to do was use my computer to clean out his mailbox and look at porn. So I informed him that he owed me two drinks, one of which he owed that very night. He complied, and between 10:30 and 11:00, we arrived at Ichabod's, the bar at which Lauren had informed me I would fit in because "everybody there is a loser." As atmosphere goes, it was alright. Not too much smoke, lots of good, clean, buzzed fun, and one or two guys drunk off their stools, singing along with every song that came over the speakers. The music left something to be desired, they played a Pearl Jam song ("Why Go") and that Outkast song that grows on me more every time I hear it, and also the new Offspring. Mostly it was indy rock, which has never really done it for me in any significant sense. All in all, as bars go, I found it acceptable.

Blake bought himself a Diet Coke and me a rum and Coke. I've decided I'm not a big fan of rum, because it has too much flavor. I like vodka, which doesn't ruin the taste of whatever's mixed with it. It just burns. So we sat there for a while and waxed philosophical about whether or not Jesus could do calculus (I maintain that Jesus could answer in problem that involves calculus, but could not actually perform the operations) and Blake offered to set me up with somebody.

I've often wondered how I would react when someone offered me that. I never thought I would react the way I did. Get this: I was concerned, with me being Blake's friend, her being Blake's friend, if things got messy, it might get awkward between me and Blake. I get weirder and weirder every fucking day. But seriously, I don't know. I always thought it would be kinda cool. Like, "Hey, most of the work's done already. Now all I have to do is show up." But that's not how I feel at all. Instead, I'm scared I'll blow it, I kinda think maybe I don't want to meet anybody at all.

So anyway, before I get all melodramatic and introspective, around midnight, Blake drove me back to the dorm, where I played more Mario 64 and the gushed about the day's experiences on my blog.

I just realized I left my tie in Blake's car. Dammit. At least it wasn't my bra.

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 1:08 AM

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¶ today is quiz day!

Nihilist Bear


Which Dysfunctional Care Bear Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


Hades


?? Which Of The Greek Gods Are You ??
brought to you by Quizilla


Congratulations! You're a Long Island Iced Tea!


What Drink Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla


You are very grunge. I don't know whether you mean
to be but you have the right attitude and ideas
to be/become a good grunger. Rock and Roll!


Grunge Test II
brought to you by Quizilla

You are a Neoclassical economist! You adhere to the
old-school ideas of Adam Smith and other
classical economists. The current schools that
fits you best is the Chicago school, check out
the work of Milton Friedman.


What school of economics do you fit into?
brought to you by Quizilla

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 3:35 PM

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¶ how to fix the bcs

Today is a day for a topic oriented post. Don't misunderstand, I'm thrilled LSU will be playing for the National Championship in January. But, by my calculations anyway, it should be against USC - not Oklahoma. So first off, here's my two main criticisms of the BCS:

1. The adjustments after the fact of the polls and computer ratings. The BCS modifies these perfectly good, perfectly understandable rankings with additional bonuses and penalties for schedule strength, losses, and quality wins. This is utterly ridiculous. Any intelligent voter, any computer algorithm worth its salt, will already have taken these factors into account. To reintroduce them overweights these factors in the final analysis, and underweights the intangibles for which the subjective polls are included in the system in the first place. Do the math, and I guarantee you'll see a much higher correlation between the computer average and the BCS rankings than between the poll average and the same. Ideally, these two should count for the same amount - or as much as possible.

2. The use of poll and computer rankings as direct raw data for the BCS formula. The quality of a footbal team is not a quantized number. That is to say, a ranking of 1. USC, 2. LSU, 3. Oklahoma does not imply that USC is exactly as much better than LSU as LSU is better than Oklahoma. This, however, is exactly the assumption made by the BCS system. Instead of taking the rankings themselves as raw data, each poll and computer ranking needs to supply some sort of score for each team in which the number of points separating two teams is actually indicative of the perceived or calculated difference in the qulity of the two teams.

With all that said, I want to propose a somewhat radical solution. Scrap everything in the current system except the computer rankings - hear me out - with the stipulation that each computer ranking counted in the formula must maintain a correlation of a certain level with the AP and Coaches' poll average. If a computer falls below this correlation at the end of a season, it must be removed from the system. To become a part of the system, a computer must meet this correlation for at least, say, 5 seasons. Also, the computer rankings should be allowed to look at anything that an impartial human could look at to determine team quality. That includes margin of victory, schedule strength (however defined), even rushing yardage and turnover margin if it seems like it will help. Finally, the ratings would have to be standardized, that is, a 67 rating in one would have to mean the same thing as a 67 in another. This can be achieved, I think, by stipulating that the highest ranked team be given a score of, say, 100, and the lowest ranked team a score of, say, zero.

¶ reading: The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots - Calvert Watkins, "True Ease in Writing Comes from Art not Chance" - Alexander Pope, "Peter Quince at the Clavier" - Wallace Stevens, "God's Grandeur" - Crale Hopkins, "Narcissus and Echo" - Fred Chappell, "Song of the Powers" - David Mason, "Song" - John Donne, "Sestina" - Elizabeth Bishop, "Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds..." - William Shakespeare, "Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night" - Dylan Thomas, "Naming of Parts" - Henry Reed, "At the Klamath Berry Festival" - William Stafford, "In Church" - Thomas Hardy

¶ watching: "NCAA Bowl Selection Show," "College Gameday"

¶ listening: "Heartsong" - Zwan, "Leave Mine To Me" - Bad Religion, "No Way" - Pearl Jam, "Low" - Foo Fighters, "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" - The Smashing Pumpkins, "The Handshake" - Bad Religion, "Proudest Monkey" - Dave Matthews Band

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 11:42 PM

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¶ what? the civil war already?

I'm tired of just blabbing about my stupid day. I'm going to do less of that from now on. Starting now.

But not quite yet. Yesterday I had my conference with Ms. Alexius, my short stories teacher. It kinda sucked. She gave me an A, but I got the distinct impression that she didn't quite get my stories until I spelled them out for her, which is frustrating whether is because she's dumb or because I'm a bad writer. She did say one nice thing about me, which is worth recording for posterity. Something to the effect of, "Not many people have a knack for the intellectual exercise of criticism and the creative ability to write so well. You could probably just as easily get an MFA in creative writing as a PhD in literature."

Yikes! Duality!

I got an 88 on my History paper, which shows yet again that I cannot break an A on anything in that class. Its kind of unfortunate, because it's a really supercool history class, what with all the Antiochuses and Antigonuses and Ptolemies.

I read Stirling's blog today, and tried to post a comment but the damn thing ate my comment without posting it. Here's the gist of what I said:

Do not go after Katie like that, not "just to get it over with" or what-have-you. You sound like you're looking for closure, a feeling I know and loath, and I can tell you right now that you will not find it by looking for it. Love goes away in time, I promise. As one of my very favorite songs says, "Hearts and thoughts, they fade away." If you decide to go after Katie anyway, do it because you love her and you want to be with her, not just to get it out of the way. No matter what, you're always going to have what-ifs... nothing will vhange that.

Advice. Maybe not my strong suit, but I have some experience with this one. I was actually thinking about something along these lines just before I read Stirling's entry. I guess I can let you all in on it.

On my way back to the dorm from work, I considered calling Jennifer over break. "I'm a better person now," I told myself, "I can keep myself from laying the spite on too thick." I thought and thought and thought, and decided that wasn't true. Unfortunately, there's only one thing I have any interest in telling Jennifer, and that's that she's not my type, never was, and I'm over her. I could be a gentleman, you know, not mention it, but it would be a waste. It would be on my mind the whole time. I'd feel worse for saying it or for not saying it. So I won't go there.

Maybe that's growing up.

¶ reading: The Rise of the Roman Empire - Polybius

¶ listening: "Money" - Pink Floyd, "At Your Funeral" - Saves The Day, "The Lighthouse's Tale" - Nickel Creek, "Kettle Whistle" - Jane's Addiction, "Hooray For Me..." - Bad Religion

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 11:11 PM

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¶ "trudat," saith the lord of hosts

Thought I'd share this:

I have issues with...

submission labor ghosts scars children

Take Word Association Test

¶ reading: The Rise of the Roman Empire - Polybius

¶ comments:

posted by ryan williams @ 11:10 PM

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