She blog, he blog-a we blog
 She blog, she blogs

 They say I better stop or I'll go blind.  (Cindy Lauper)


February
2/15/04 9:09 PM
October
10/16/03 9:45 PM
September
Try to remember a time in September when I actually blogged? Can't? Me either.
August
8/22/03 11:16 PM
8/14/03 8:12 AM
8/9/03 11:25 PM
July
7/30/03 10:45 PM
7/30/03 6:59 PM
7/29/03 4:45 PM
7/28/03 12:42 PM
7/28/03 12:10 AM
7/24/03 8:04 AM
7/23/03 9:42 PM
7/22/03 6:54 PM
7/20/03 11:45 PM
7/18/03 10:02 PM
7/17/03 11:45 PM
7/09/02 11:30 PM
June
6/30/03 10:28 PM
6/27/03 4:40 PM

Blog Archives

May 03
April 03
March 03
February 03
January 03

2/15/04 9:09 PM

Reading: _Publics and Counterpublics_, Michael Warner
Listening: _Greatest Hits_, Red Hot Chili Peppers
Junk Food of the moment: Hershey's Kisses

It's been months and months since I've blogged, obviously. I think last semester I put so much on the net for the cyberclass, I just had no impetus to load up blog links. But after four months, I think I just need to -start- where I am. I have saved a ton of links to load up, but now it's just way too much work to load them up and I'm not sure it's worth it. Lots has happened in four months. We had our road trip to Arizona and Nevada. That was great. School started and I'm teaching the grad rhet crit class, which is also great. I'm already behind and scrambling to catch up with everything I have to do.

This weekend is Mardi Gras. Josh is having his usual Mardi Gras bash. That should be a huge blast.

Completely unrelated links (don't ask, just surf and enjoy):

80s Lyrics Quiz
Sur La Lune -- Fairy tale pages, beautiful art
Lyrics to Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella
Geoffrey Edelmann (Check out the pics)
Confessions of a Car Salesman (EXCELLENT article)
"Robinson Crusoe and the Ethnic Sidekick," (_Bright Lights_)
IRS Forms (ours? Done! Refund!)
Normal Bob Smith's Unholy Army of Catholic Schoolgirls
"Tenured Bosses, Disposable Teachers," Marc Bousquet
CNN Study: Women On-line Gamers Over 40
Definition of a Fuckhead
Radio Show featuring Dr. Karlyn Kohrs Campbell

In heavy rotation on the start menu:

Free Cell
Word Perfect
Microsoft Word
Kazaa
Internet Explorer
WSFTP

Let's see if blogging sticks again, yea?
 t'asdf

~LS~

10/16/03 9:45 PM

October has been a great month for movies. We saw Kill Bill, which I thought would suck based on the previews, but which actually ROCKED. This week the Sean Pitt movie comes out. I know I saw a couple other good ones, but I can't remember for the life of me.

Saturday I am going with my Rhetoric of Cyberculture class to the Audubon Aquarium and the IMAX where we will see Matrix Reloaded. This is a class field trip. I have been posting a lot to the class website because of all the assignments.

Class was a total trip today. We read this really cool article called Cyborgs on Campus, a non-linear hyperlinked article. One of the best I've seen, actually. The article basically makes an analogy that argues Jesus Christ is a faxed cat. Actually, more accurately, he compares the host at communion to a faxed cat. Jesus and the cat itself would be the "originals" (whatever that means). I love this article. I love watching the students freak out when they get it. If you don't get it immediately, you just have to read the article. But somewhere in the essay there is a compelling question: Which are we more afraid of, pinning down a fluid process into a product, or turning a product into an open process. It's a scary question, I agree.

~LS~

OCTOBER

Starting to look like September!

~LS~

SEPTEMBER

I did not blog!

~LS~

8/22/03 11:16 PM

Ooops. I forgot to blog!
I've been really busy.

Eric conveys an emotion is a hysterical website by a very creative and expressive guy. He should be an actor or something. He even takes requests for emotions. Thanks, Josh, for the link.

I'm downloading about 150 emails an hour due to the SoBig.F virus. I've been fighting with the virus for the past few days. I got hit pretty hard. I've tried every sort of virus cleaner and apparently I'm not infected. Finally I talked to the supervisor of the helpdesk at LSU, an excellent guy, and he said that even if you're not infected, you can get hundreds of mails, and the reason why I'm getting so many mails is that I'm popular. Well, at least there's a silver lining to this cloud.

~LS~

8/14/03 8:12 AM

My Car is a SLUT!

I can't call my car "widow" anymore; she's seeing someone new.

Steve bought a new Aerio sedan, white this time. Dealing with the whole car thing has been pretty interesting. Our insurance company is Progressive. Steve wrecked the car on Friday. By Wednesday, we had the payout check in our hands to put a deposit down on a new car! Progressive rocks!

We also have the honor of being the first people to wreck a 2003 Aerio. I don't know if this is true or not, but that's what the Progressive adjuster said. He said they didn't have the value of the car in their database.

We got really lucky. Progressive said since we had made only ONE car payment, they would pay the manufacturers' suggested retail price of the vehicle, based on our purchase agreement, rather than the street value of the car (which they didn't have in their database anyway). So, basically that meant Steve got reimbursed for the total value of the car instead of the value minus his trade in, minus the dealer's rebate! Woohoo! So basically we walked away AHEAD of the game. I don't know many people who walk away ahead of the game when it comes to insurance. So, once again, I feel lucky and blessed.

Then we went to the Suzuki dealer and told them we wanted the exact same numbers we had on the blue Aerio and we got it, except that the interest rate went up fractionally. I'm sure the dealer made a killing because 2003s are being slashed to make room for 2004s. Steve's car payment is basically 2.00 higher than it was before and he said the interest rate increase wouldn't add up to much over the life of the loan (look at all the big grown up words I'm using! Life of the loan! Hee). So, everyone made out like a bandit except for the insurance company, who shouldered the cost of this whole thing.

They had to run a new credit check. I was afraid that, since Steve had two car loans, a bank might not approve a third one (the actual payout check and paperwork was in process, which meant the bank hadn't actually received it yet, though they were aware of it). But he got approved with no problem. In fact, his credit rating has shot through the roof since we bought the first two cars. I'm not sure why, except that maybe he bought two cars and/or got a credit card from Hibernia (my doing, of course).

We learned about the whole "did your airbags go off" thing. Inflated airbags show the impact of the crash, but they also are very expensive to replace. By law, they have to be replaced by the car manufacturer and they cost like 4-5K. By law, if repairs to your car cost over 75 percent of the car's original value, then the car is considered total, because the damage is structural. So, if the airbags blow, and the cost of replacing them is so high, then it's a good indicator that your car is totaled. Or so Steve says.

And, last but not least: When he went to view the crash site, the insurance adjuster ran the very same stop sign.

Obligatory link:

Ariadne says that seeing obligatory links is like someone's sock drawer or medicine cabinet.

~LS~

8/9/03 11:25 PM

Why is it that men like to compare everything to jerking off? Here's a quote from Rolling Stone's interview with Steven Tyler (issue 929, August 21, 2003):

RS: You're fifty-five. How old is too old to be a rock star?

Steven Tyler: How long are you going to jerk off? Till it doesn't feel good anymore.
 

Here's a great link from Wesley: Baptists Are Saving Homosexuals! (aka BASH). This is a MUST SEE link.

Malia set up a Diaryland journal about Digipen, though she hasn't started it yet. I guess her school hasn't started.

I got an email from Joseph Vaye today. Poor guy. His father was killed during all the turmoil in Liberia. He sent me a link to an article on ABC news explaining what has happened to his father. I feel badly for the dude. What a tragedy. Seriously, though, this scam is probably the closest to the Spanish Prisoner scam that I've seen so far.

In other news on the Sells-Jaros household, Steve wrecked his Aerio -- after ONE car payment! I'm so sad. Luckily, he wasn't hurt, but the car is completely DOA. I've been waiting for the right name for my car. Cars must be named on the basis of personality and so I suppose my car was still developing her personality. My yellow banana aerio told me yesterday that she was sad about losing her blue beau and that she wanted to be named "Widow." And I made it so.
 
~LS~

7/30/03 10:45 PM

Bizarre conversation with Steve:

Me (whining): Why do you troll all the time? Trolling is so stupid and rude. Besides, it's completely predictable. You already know what the responses are going to be. 30 percent will agree, 30 percent will disagree, 30 percent will call you an asshole, and 10 percent will ask why can't we all get along. Where's the fun in that?

Steve (laughing): I like predictability. It's like jerking off. It's fun each of the 10,000 times you do it and you know it's going to be fun the 10,001 time too.

You know, there's a lot of things I could have said in response to that. Instead I just asked him if I could post it on my blog.

~LS~

7/30/03 6:59 PM

Listening: Nelly, Airforce Ones

My blog has drifted closer and closer toward the personal. I must steer a truer course. I will be victorious in this trial!

Shoutout to Martin Montorfano, former student of mine from the ASU Matrix class. Martin sent me a very funny link, Absolute Foucault.

Shoutout to Wesley for getting sited on CRTNET! Go Wesley.

What's up with me and this shoutout thing. Feh.

Now, for the most important part of this entry. Drumroll........

Obligatory link: Papermate Flair Felt-tip Pens at Staples.com

I love flair felt-tip pens. Carolyn at USF introduced me to the groovy green ones, which she uses for all grading (so much gentler than brutal red). My house is filled with functional green ones but my purple ones that Teresa stole for me two years ago from the Florida taxpayers have all run dry and I cannot find them. Anywhere. Single or boxed. And then Miss Teresa FOUND them for me at Staples. So, here's the link for ordering!

Give me purple
I need purple
So I can get to stompin' in my flair tip pens
stompin' in my flair tip pens

~LS~

7/29/03 4:45 PM

Post-Birthday Gushing and Ranting

My  husband seriously rocks. Ruth's Chris? Excellent. They cook their steaks in butter. Calorie count? Food for a week for a family of New Millennial beggars in Lagos, Nigeria (if you don't understand that joke, it's because you don't realize blogs are daily-ish, so read back a few days). Seriously. Most important, though? MY PRESENT! AN ENGAGEMENT RING! I was shocked to silence (I'm never quite). Steve and I eloped to Las Vegas, see. I never got an engagement ring, see. I have a great wedding ring story, but that's for another time. So, OMG, IT'S FUCKING HUGE. The engagement ring, that is, see.

On another note, turning 40 made me reflect once again on grrl stuff on the web, which I already wrote about in some journal entry here somewhere. Whatever. Anyway, I went scouting for some chickclick affiliate sites and I found some of the graphics, at least. They were so hip. I found some on Courtney Macavinta's site. She was the managing editor. And I found some e-cards on another one of their former web designer's sites. One of their former sister sites, hellfire.com, has an actual list links to chickclick sister sites, so I had surfing fun. I hadn't surfed chickclick for probably a year or so before it shut down. Needless to say, they degenerated, succumbing to commercial demands and losing their political edge, like so many other women-focused places on the net. I found a commentary that said something similar and an old article from salon that mentions chickclick and talks about the feminist revolution on the net, or lack thereof. I think grrl stuff became anime stuff. It's another example of gen X being squeezed from boomers on one side of the demographic hump, and their kids on the other. Britney Spears is no longer popular, but that's just because the 8 year old Willow's of the world are now 13 and buying Pink and Avril Lavigne instead. And third wave feminism, which is not my mother's feminism, is now commodified (like all feminism is, I suppose) into Lara Croft. Ok. This is old news. I've ranted about this. Other people have ranted about this. I need to get over it. But I'm entitled. I'm 40, dammit.

~LS~

7/28/03 12:42 PM


The Birthday Catch-up Blog Entry

I woke up this morning to balloons, a birthday bouquet, and a cup of coffee. Life is good. I got email greetings from a bunch of folks including one from the cleaning chick and another funny one from Joshie. This afternoon I will have Gambino's gourmet birthday cake. Tonite I am going to Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. When I lived in Austin as an undergrad, my roommate (coincidentally, her name was Ruth) told me that she heard Ruth's Chris steakhouse, which was a Texas-based chain, was named after Ruth's husband (or maybe her son...) who ran the steakhouse and then died, so Ruth kept the name in honor of him. Once, I mentioned this to Tracy who pshawed at me and told me Ruth was from New Orleans. So I looked it up on the web today and found out that not only was Tracy right, but Ruth would NEVER name a restaurant after her husband, since the restaurant was developed as a divorce project -- another displaced homemaker making good. Go Ruth!

Shoutout to Shashak Jain from LSU Public Administration who sent me a compliment on my website.

Shoutout to Sasha Normand from USF who took a bunch of WMST courses with me when I was there. I haven't heard from him in years. He ran into my name while surfing and sent me an email. I need to email him back, though. I surfed to see if I could find his website, but I couldn't. Instead, though, I found a cool article quoting him about my pop culture class from the USF Oracle, dated back in 1997. I had forgotten about this article. God I'm old.

Shoutout to another Nigerian friend, Engineer Ali Razak. Ali Razak is an amazing man. He has two jobs in two completely different countries on opposite sides of the continent. Eng. Ali Razak works as the Director of Project Implementation at the Department of Mining Resources in Pretoria, South Africa. He also works as a contract reviewer at the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in Lagos, Nigeria. Impressive credentials. More impressive travel time. He must be a workaholic. That must be why he carelessly posted confidential information to a public bulletin board. Bless his heart. He needs a vacation.

Incidentally, speaking of where Ali Razak lives, begging is so bad in Lagos, that one newspaper article called it "Nigeria's 'New Millennia' Begging Business." No wonder Eng. Ali Razak wants to leave Nigeria and move to Pretoria! South Africa, however, isn't much better. In South Africa, they test teenagers' (both female AND male) virginity following old Zulu customs and then give them certificates if they pass the test. I think virginity certificates would be really successful here in the US, at least for the junior high crowd. Sorry for the digression.

I'm sure there's more I need to catch up on, but it can wait until another day.

~LS~

7/28/03 12:10 AM

I am officially 40 now. I spent the last hours of my 30s eating ice cream and reading next to Steve. It doesn't get much better than that (ok, so, I can think of a few things better than that, like a trip to Europe, winning lotto, being queen of the universe, getting my way all the time, sex.....) I'm going to bed now. Hmm. I think it's about to get a little better.

~LS~

7/24/03 8:04 AM

I'm turning 40 without Teresa, Loretta, or Carolyn. That makes me sad. I had dinner with Val last night.

Birthday Countdown:

4 more days until I'm 40.

~LS~

7/23/03 9:42 PM

List of things I've closets cleaned in the past week:

1. Pantry.
2. Bathroom linen closet.
3. Underwear drawer.
4. Pen drawer.

List of sample items found and tossed:

1.  Willow's old lunch pack soy milks; fermented.
    Walmart brand ("Great Value") Hot Chocolate; six small packages of solid brown milk-product bricks (not such a great value).
2.  Corroded batteries; tylenol - two years expired.
3. Five year old "period" panties. No elastic left. Please. I'm so embarrassed. *blush*
4.  One dried up Little Mermaid pen. One dried up Aladdin pen. One dried up Harry Potter pen. One dried up Hercules pens. I sense a theme. These pens are not as magical as they seem.


Obligatory Blog Link:

50 random numbers from Random.Org: A true random number service.

79 92 49 76 42
22 11 95 51 95
42 21 27 1 64
92 57 10 92 67
24 8 18 13 44
57 31 42 48 6
26 66 75 37 15
3 46 47 87 2
65 96 56 8 98
18 52 15 14 48

Birthday Countdown:

5 more days until I'm 40.

~LS~

7/22/03 6:54 PM

Reading: _Harry Potter_, J.K. Rowling

I have so many friends in Nigeria! They keep mailing me. They are all very rich. Nigeria must be a wealthy country. They all also have many problems getting access to their money! You would think that a country with so many rich people would have a better banking and commerce system.  My newest friend is DR. CHUKWUBUEZE VICTOR.

Now playing on the start button:


1. Word Perfect
2. Microsoft Word
3. Front Page
4. Spider Solitaire
5. Microsoft Money
6. WS_FTP

Now, in all honesty, I cheated with that start button. Somehow, I found something called "pin to short list" that adds a program to the permanent list of programs in the short list of the start button. Follow that? And then I wiped out -everything- from the most used list beneath that. So, let's be a little more honest here:

Now playing on the permanent short list of the start button:

1. Calculator
2. Windows Explorer (that's the file manager program)
3. Netscape
4. Netscape Mail
5. Simple Mu (I'm such a fucking addict)
6. Post It Notes (yes, I use that. It's wonderful)



6 more days until I'm 40.

~LS~

7/20/03 11:45 PM

Josh, Wesley, and Joe came over to watch my Coupling DVD yesterday. That show is so funny. They've been showing the previews of the US version but I haven't seen any. I've read a little bit about it on the discussion board at The Giggleloop. (To know about the Giggleloop is to be a part of the Giggleloop.) Most people seem to be fearful. Wesley and Joe pretty much agreed after viewing the dvd that a U.S. show would suck. I know there's a bootleg vid out there on the net, but I'm have no interest in finding it. Everyone who's seen it says it sucks, or so they post on various discussion groups. Hopefully the BBC version will continue and BBC America will keep showing it. I do intend to watch the US show on NBC, but I'm hardly hopeful. And in the middle of my pessimism, my block lost electricity due to the storm yesterday. So in the middle of our watching the DVD, we had to move over to Loretta's place, where Joe is staying. We lost Josh in the process, but I will lend him the DVD if he's interested.

Cool link of note:

Blogshares - a fantasy blog share market. Here is how the site describes itself on its "about" page: BlogShares is a simulated, fantasy stock market for weblogs where players invest fictional money to buy stocks and bonds in an artificial economy where attention is the commodity and weblogs are the companies. Weblogs, or blogs for short, are valued by their incoming links from other known blogs. In effect, links become the business deals in the simulation and players speculate on the fortunes of thousands of blogs by buying and selling shares.

OMG! Can you believe it? Whoever made this had -way- too much time on their hands. But what a neat concept. I doubt I will ever get involved in any way unless I am suddenly unemployed, but still, it's fun to surf.

Last, but not least, I made my first blog archive. Yay for me!
 

~LS~

7/18/2003 10:02 PM
  
Eavesdrop on an email conversation with the CMST listserv:

This is in response to 1. Josh sending out an invitation to a congrats party for two grads who are moving on to tenure track jobs, and 2. Josh accidentally sending an email to the list that was intended for Loretta. The email said simply, "I miss you."

Here is Shaun Treat's response:

Hey Gunn and LSU comm studs (and studettes?). Treat here, not gonna make it to the farewell party for Darren and Ross. Picking up the kids in Arkansas, got cajoled into loitering over the weekend. Tell the boys goodbye, and I hope all the lurking commies will slap them on the ass and say "Shaun says adios muchachos!" (Not too hard, Wesley)

BTW, has anyone contacted the new grads to insure attendance? Make it so!

And I miss you too, Joshie-poo :)

And mine

Shaun's email got me thinking. What -do- you call a female stud? A brood mare? It just doesn't have the same impact.

So, I googled "female stud." Yes, google is indeed now a verb. I thought I'd share some of the more interesting links, which will save you the effort of closing up all those porn-site popups, and for those of you who don't want to be spared those popups (you know who you are), you obviously know how to find them yourselves. Anyhoot, I found a great pic of a sexy female stud as well as some hot pics of male and female stud couplings. For the kinky end of the spectrum (again, you know who you are), check out this ad for a stud service: I want a male stud to mate with my female toy. None of these sites answered my question of what you call a female stud, though. Then I hit paydirt! I actually found an article on this entitled "What do you call a female stud"? I found this article on Sabrina's website. Sabrina is a sex columnist, lion tamer, and High Priestess of the Goddess Most High. Sabrina should -know- the answer to this, I thought, since she claims to have had sex with over 4,000 men. (Some of us obviously need to catch up.) It's worth the read. Unfortunately, she never answers the question. So if anyone knows -what- you call a female stud, please email me back with the answer.

Signed,
Laura (who obviously has too much time on her hands)

P.S. I won't touch that ass-slapping male, homo-social *cough* bonding thing with a ten-foot stud (male or female).

P.S.S. Josh, I know you miss me. But it's only been a couple of days since we've seen each other. I think you need to establish some boundaries. (hee)

~LS~