Chemicals, chemicals, non-franchise chemicals!

Now that I'm back amongst the ranks of the employed, I'm going to have to re-state my support for coffee. A legal, socially acceptable stimulant, it's sometimes the only thing that keeps me upright and functional. Now, the shaved apes I have to work with may be happy drinking cup after cup of instant Nescafe all day, but this particular simian needs something a little bit better. Yes, there are two Starbucks and one Costa on my way to work, but I like options. Besides, if I've learned nothing else from the films of Sylvester Stallone, it's that you should support the little guy, the unlikely artist with something to say, the underdog, the heavily armed veteran and the arm-wrestling-truck-driving single father.

Hmm. Seem to have lost the track there. Anyway, if you'd like to find a non-Starbucks coffee nearby, try Delocator.com (or Delocator.ca or Delocator.org.uk, depending on where you're aiming to go) for a postal/zip code search of independently owned coffee shops and tea parlors and such.

(Thanks for the heads up, Secret Agent K!)

Lowering the bar for higher education

It's a dark day for edumacation in Great Britain. In a move to improve the numbers of people holding qualifications, the UK has announced that they'll certify certain McDonald's management courses as being equivalent to A-levels, which will be something roughly equivalent to AP credit towards getting something like diplomas or associates degrees.

And to make things worse, an otherwise unremarkable university that has not yet lost its accredited status has hired a shiftless, foul-mouthed foreigner to teach a study skills and language improvement class to other foreign students who lack the language skills and the motivation to make it at the university level.

Oh, the irony gets thick sometimes!

Seriously, who cares about this sort of thing?

Should anyone at all care about the fact that some jerk running for congress had his face put on a thinner body for a campaign photo? It's just a little bit of advertising sent to voters to present an image of himself, which obviously has no bearing on his policies, right? And the fact that the people putting his ad together felt they were doing him a favor by making him look better than he may actually look in real life doesn't really matter, does it? And since the people are clearly too smart to care about anything other than the real issues of the day, there's no reason to give a damn about any of this, is there? The truthiness will come through in the end.


Incidentally, doesn't democracy rely on an informed populace to function? No? Sorry, I must have been thinking of something else. I, for one, welcome our new, composite-imaged leaders. Long may their photoshopped visages shine.

Keep on keepin' on

Going back to work soon. Edumactin' them thar ex-changed students. Yeah, the foul-mouthed Yank foreigner complaining about the quality of instruction is being hired to teach at that self-same institution. Not quite the blind leading the blind, but somewhere in the neighborhood. Maybe "the belligerent lecturing the apathetic" or "the surly leading the indifferent".

Anyway, been trying to get some fictional-type writing done. I figure I've already got half-empty bottles scattered around my desk, a big-ass stack of books to read that no one else seems interested in, and I can use "synecdoche" in a sentence. What else do I need besides a snooty portrait for the back of my book, a felt-tip pen to autograph with, and some Hollywood type to arrange an option deal that will linger in development hell forever and ever?

I mean, besides a plot and characters, and maybe another 90,000 words or so?

Happy 2008 y'all. I'll be back to bitching about stuff soon.