Bang My Head Upon The Fault Line

My hard drive has 66.66 gigs of space left. I hope this doesn’t portend a drive failure.

Current Music: The Number of the Beast - “The Number of the Beast (Limited Edition)” - Iron Maiden

Current Music: Dani California - “Dani California - Single” - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Today, the NCAA handed done another decision regarding Chief Illiniwek. Now, I’ve never really cared one way or the other about the Chief question. At the very least, I couldn’t care less about sports. And because I don’t give a shit about sports, I’ve never been to a sporting event here on campus. So, I’ve never seen the Chief in action.

However, because of the miracle of YouTube, and a handy link, I finally got to see the Chief in action.

Wow, really? That is the esteemed “symbol” of the University the pro-Chief people keep going on about? That guy? It’s just some schmuck in a bad costume!

Now, since I finally saw the Chief. I’m firmly anti-Chief. Not because of any issues about discrimination. I just think we need a non-lame mascot.

Like Farm Bot.

In case you don’t have access to UIUC’s Facebook, here’s the main gist of the page:

This group is for students who think a robot mascot that shoots corn on the cob out of an arm cannon and bottle rockets out of an Abe Lincoln hat would be really cool. FARM Bot (Fucking Awesome Robot Mascot) was developed by a partnership between Globaltech Technologies and the Monsanto Corporation in 1967. All Rights Reserved

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Now there’s a symbol for the University of Illinois!

Current Music: The Devil Went Down To Georgia - “Southern Fried Rock” - The Charlie Daniels’ Band

Technorati Tags: Chief Illiniwek

Rush Limbaugh was in jail for an hour today.

Current Music: Happy Xmas (War Is Over) - “Merry Axemas - A Guitar Christmas” - Hotei

Why am I fucking around with Illustrator instead of studying?

Current Music: Third Eye - “Ænima” - Tool

Since we’re entering the most dreaded time of the year, I figured I’d be lazy and re-post (and slightly rework) classic entries from my old sites. So, enjoy!

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The other day, I was in a contemplative mood. As I was relaxing and watching a movie, I had a thought about the Chief Illiniwek controversy. I thought to myself, “Self, imagine instead of a Native American figure, what if we had another minority group’s representative as our mascot? If we had, say, a rabbi as our mascot, would that go over, even if it was respectfully presented?”

Well, let’s give it a shot. I am proud to present:

RABBI ILLINIWITZ!

Think of the possibilities of this exciting new mascot! During the half-time show, he could perform a bris on the other team’s mascot! We could sell orange and blue dreidels and yarmulkes! Accounting firms could offer Rabbi Illiniwitz tax-time services!

Nobody would find that offensive, would they?

Current Music: Punks In the Beerlight - “Tanglewood Numbers” - Silver Jews

Technorati Tags: Chief Illiniwek

There was a Ford GT at the grocery store this afternoon.

Who takes a Ford GT grocery shopping?

Current Music: Overdrive - “One by One” - Foo Fighters

I’ve placed 39 photos of Day of Silence on my Flickr.

I still need to go through and do quite a bit of labeling. Still, take a look. I think it gives a good view of the size of the crowd.

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Overall, I think the day went very well. Good turnout, great speakers, and perfect weather.

For a while there, I was a bit worried about how this year’s DoS would turn out. I wasn’t involved with the early stages of the planning, as I was too busy with other things. When I did finally get involved, things were a little chaotic. We were unsure of our money situation, we were having problems getting speakers, and things were just unorganized. However, Bridget Geraghty really kicked some ass and pulled everything together. (I’m hoping she runs for a PRIDE position next semester.) All in all, the day went smoothly.

After today’s event, I really felt the nostalgia kick in. Yeah, I’ll be here for another year. However, I’ll be much less involved with LGBT stuff next year, and I can’t help but feel a little down about that. Yes, at times, it’s been…irritating. Still, I think being involved with PRIDE really helped me along the path of coming out. In a way, I’ll be sad. But on the whole, it’s definitely time to move on. Freeing myself of all the drama and the thankless work will be a relief.

Current Music: Pig - “Before These Crowded Streets” - Dave Matthews Band

Today was absolutely beautiful. This is my perfect sort of weather. Ideal temperature, not a cloud in the sky, and only 44% relative humidity.

The animals seemed to agree with my assessment of the weather. I had two notable creature encounters today on the way to the Day of Silence rally.

The first:

There was a big ol’ goose up on the bank of the Boneyard Creek in the Engineering Quad. It seemed not at all aware that I was taking pictures of it. I managed to get this close:

I’m always shocked when I see living things by that creek. Considering how polluted it is, I figured it would kill anything that so much as touched it.

The second:

By the table for DoS, there was the biggest, tamest squirrel I’ve ever seen in my life. It would eat out of your hand. It was bigger than a chihuahua that went by. Never seen anything quite like it.

I’m glad the squirrel could come out for the rally. It’s nice to see non-humans working for the cause of LGBT rights. It’s weird the goose didn’t come down to support us. It must have been a homophobe. Geese, and most birds in general besides peacocks, are notoriously homophobic.

Current Music: Birds of Fire - “Birds of Fire” - Mahavishnu Orchestra