Insert title here

Correct Yourself

2004-10-11T16:46:00.000-07:00

Shameless Promotion

2004-10-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

My friend Maraget's brother has released a new CD. His name is Citizen Cope. The album is Clarence Greenwood Recordings. I thoroughly enjoy his music, but I'm not sure if it's because I know his sister (never met him) or if it's because I like his music. Let me know what you think!

Click here to listen to Fame. Click Citizen Cope above to see web-site and see the video for Bullet and a Target.

Who among us....?

2004-10-06T09:02:00.000-07:00

"Who among us doesn't love NASCAR?"

John Kerry was quoted as saying this in a Maureen Dowd column that I can't access without paying the New York Times my idly-earned dollars, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

This quote, which has started to be used by those who want to pit Kerry as out of touch with the common man, has now been reported to have never been said.

Did he say it? Who knows. Is it something that Kerry would say? Absolutely. Is it hilarious? Yes.

Here are some links to stories about this quote/misquote.

Saying the quote is false

Also claiming the quote is false

Football Fans for Truth

Site suggesting that Kerry should spend some time among those who do like NASCAR

By the way, I hate NASCAR. So, I, who is among you, do hate NASCAR. Indeed.

Jim's Blog

2004-10-05T13:20:00.000-07:00

Twin brother Jim has a blog called Laterally.

He used to hate my blog; now he doesn't. He didn't like it when I was talking about what a mess the Iraq war would be on my old blog.

Enjoy.

Tom Foolery II

2004-10-04T17:44:00.000-07:00

I had "stupid-question day" the other day so students could ask questions about France (which are usually really dumb questions). I made it stupid-question day so that students wouldn't be embarrassed to ask questions since it was under the auspices of every question being stupid.
I had two zingers that nearly made me blush. The first one was by a student who asked me "Is it easy to get laid in France?" I had no idea how to answer it, so I told him to stay after class and I'd tell him. The class oohed and ahhed thinking I was going to tell him the details of my personal Benjamin Franklining around France. Instead I hit him with this answer, "Ask your Mom [long pause so he knows how I meant it], your parents should decide how much you know about sex and when." It was gold.
The second question involved some sort of sexual position apparently invented by French prostitutes according to a (slutty) curious student. I told her that I didn't appreciate her asking that. I should've told her to ask her mom, as well.
We had a French Club picnic. We had pizza instead of French food. Why, you ask? Logistics. We did play some soccer. I hit random students with random sporting goods equipment just to make them remember that I owned them.
My neighbor-teacher Sherry and I have started making Espresso in her classroom like we live there. It's great. Lots of caffeine everyday. I'm having a caffeine headache as we speak since she's been out for a few days.
I told my students, without thinking what I was saying, that they shouldn't look for sexual organs on their pencils and papers (referring to gender in the French language).
One of my students inadvertantly F-bombed the entire room. I told him that he'd really offended me and needed to apologize. He felt horrible. When talking about it to another teacher I exclaimed, "You won't believe what [insert name] fucking said!"
A fellow teacher was doing a St. Jude's drive. During the middle of his sales pitch to my students I said, "Wait a second! St. Jude is the patron Saint of lost causes! Don't throw your money away!" He didn't appreciate it so much.

Shame oh the shame

2004-10-04T17:39:00.000-07:00

The following was found in a forum on the web. Note: these are not for puritans.

Do the Lynddie!

2004-09-12T19:14:00.000-07:00

Click here for the funniest thing ever

Belated Movie Reviews

2004-09-06T20:25:00.000-07:00

It seems that I missed a lot of movies in the past decade and watched quite a few of them this past weekend. I thought I might give a review of them:

Windtalkers
**
It was a decent action flic with more of a story than John Woo usually lets you have. Nicolas Cage gives the usual mailed-in Johnny Fontane performance that you would expect from Hollywood Silver Spoon trying to play the part of a war hero.
The Navajos are decent actors except their characters are one dimensional and you feel nothing but sympathy for them. It isn't clear whether the actors are actually Navajos or not, nor whether the language you hear is really Navajo. One would have to do some research to find out the answer to those questions.
Unfortunately, I watched this movie the night after I watched When We Were Soldiers, so the fake battle scenes done on what was surely a Hollywood set seemed very contrived if not reminiscent of the A-team. It was tiring to watch the correct person run while poorly trained Japanese soldiers shot at the dirt around their feet (go for the chest!).
It's worth watching if you like fake action movies that try to have a serious message and plot.

When We Were Soldiers
****
I avoided this movie for a long time because the previews had that line, "We will ride into battle...and this will be our horse." The rhythm with which Mel Gibson said those lines really bothered me. I wish I could recreate it for you, but I can't, you'll just have to remember how he said it. In any event, I did myself a disservice by not watching this movie sooner. Because of movies like Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, and TV shows like Tour of Duty, battle in Vietnam felt very stifling, lacking in strategy, and not very technological. When We Were Soldiers gives the strategy on both sides a lot of play and take a realistic approach to showing a true story without embellishing much. Soon to be canonized, Mel Gibson gives another great performance.

G.I. Jane
***
Good story, thought provoking, erotic. See it, not sure if you should believe it.

The Recruit
***
An on-the-edge-of-your-seat-thriller if you missed the previews and ignore Pacino playing the same bad guy that he's played since the Devil's Advocate. C'mon Scarface, do some coke and get all crazy in a movie.

Tom Foolery

2004-08-30T21:57:00.000-07:00

Some things that happened in the classroom worth mentioning:

One of my students made several orgasmic noises out of nervousness while he was at the board in front of the class. Everyone noticed and knew what the noises sounded like.

I wrote IH8MRH on a student's paper while she was at the board teaching. She asked what it meant and I played dumb. I then wrote it on the board, feigned angry and said, "It means that you hate Mr. Horne!" I think I may put that on a license plate.

One of my students refers to himself as Porndaddy - and asks that I call him that. I don't, but I did call him Ron Jeremy once just to see if he knew anything about porn. He didn't.

I cautioned my students that if I ever caught them cheating I'd pour glue in their eyes.

Dewey, one of my students who is unintentionally funny, called down from the office where he is a worker-bee and asked if we had Mitch Tipton. I replied that I got rid of it with anti-biotics after catching it at the beach last summer. He didn't really get it.

I told my students for the 2nd year in a row that I had 7 years of tap when I was a kid and that I was a great tap-dancer but was too nervous to do it in front of the class.

One of my students, complaining about an oral test exclaimed, "I suck at oral!"

A meek little girl asked me to go to the restroom, I jokingly told her not to smoke any crack. The next day, she came in late and I asked her where she'd been and she said, "Smoking crack." I didn't count her tardy.

One student who looks a lot like Harry Potter said something like "What was the question?" really fast twice and it sounded a lot like a dubbing from a techno song.

I have a student who looks like Drew Carey.

I have a student who is this meek little girl and she came in the other day wearing a Trogdor shirt. I bought the handsome messenger bag.

I'm sure something else happened...oh yeah...lots of learning despite all of these distractions!

2nd World Living

2004-08-30T17:03:00.000-07:00

Here some reasons that I feel I may be living in the 2nd World:

1) The Subway ran out of bread and couldn't make me a sandwich, yet they did offer me a wrap to which I replied, "Ewww."

2) The movie theaters and yard sales boom on the 1st of the month when welfare checks are issued. At the end of the month, everything is dead.

3)I read an article in the paper that claimed that there was a high percentage of people locally who had never been to a doctor's office.

4)Nearly 10% of my students last year were pregnant (10 out of 106) at one point or another.

5)High School students whom I expected to know where France, Quebec, and Louisiana are on a map put them in places like Russia and Africa. I'm not joking.

6)My town of roughly 10,000 has a public housing project that is about the same size as Johnson City's (town of 50,000).

7)There are few jobs other than service-industry jobs.

8)Illegal gambling abounds.

9)Drugs abound.

10)I live in a grass hut.

Just Jokes

2004-08-27T04:12:00.000-07:00

Woman #1 - "Where did you go to school at?"

Woman #2 - "I went to school where they teach you to not end your sentences in prepositions."

Woman #1 - "Oh, I'm sorry. Where did you go to school at, bitch?"

Radiohead in Russia

2004-08-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

Radiohead's latest album to be delayed due to lead singer Thom York acting as Vladimir Putin's double for security reasons.

Volleyball?

2004-08-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

I think the ratings for beach volleyball went up and all those ED companies bought some Olympic airtime. Don't call me a perve, I just report the news...and they thought it was hot when that soccer player ripped her shirt off.

Google Search: "Jason Horne"

2004-08-24T15:38:00.000-07:00

Vanity Oh Vanity would make one type their own name into Google to see what they can find...

I found this letter to the editor of the ETSU paper I wrote on 9/20/2001. 3 years removed from it, I can see my little idealist/reactionary 23 year-old self typing away at 3AM in response trying enlighten those at ETSU.

Am I still that person?

Yes and No. I still abhor racism. As a matter of fact, I lectured my students on wearing the Confederate flag today. I like to harrass them about that, anyway. I made the point that you may not consider it racist, but most African-Americans would not approach you for friendship if you wore one of those shirts. The reason not to wear the shirt is wrapped up in someone else's reaction to it - not the reasons you want to wear it. I don't want to debate this point, but feel free to talk to me about history and how your black friends don't have a problem with it.

What's changed then?

I wouldn't write a letter to the editor about something like that. I should, but I wouldn't.

Reasons?

1) Blame it on Dad: My Father got really mad about a letter I wrote to the Johnson City Press while I was in France concerning the buildup to war in Iraq and the international situation. I thought I would be a good ambassador between France and East Tennessee. I looked for the article, but the JCP only keeps a 5 day archive of letters.

2) It really doesn't do any good. It seems that only screw balls and local persons of minor importance particpate in writing a letter to the editor. When I was in France, I used to read the letters to the editor so I could show funny ones to Margaret who was raised on the Washington Post and the New York Times. I found that most of them were written by crackpots and misguided zealots still trying to overturn Roe vs. Wade or provide some biblical evidence that God hates fags. Against this backdrop of insanity, why waste my countdown-to-carpal-tunnel-minutes?

3) I'm not as idealistic. Reality has shown me that people won't change unless they decide to do it on their own. It would be impossible to convince someone to change their mind by a simple letter to the editor. I don't possess the epistolary skills capable of vanquishing such a powerful and obviously deeply-engrained emotion such as hate. It takes something quite different: what that is, I don't really know or else hate would be gone.

Conclusion:

In order to change the world, you gotta get your hands dirty, but the ink of the local rag doesn't get them dirty enough.

Wireless

2004-08-22T20:57:00.000-07:00

I'm now running wireless in my apartment. I have my cable modem hooked up to a wirelss router and I got a wireless USB network adapter for my desktop. This means that my APT no longer has wires running across the floor in my living room, which may help with interior decorating.

Fresh

2004-08-16T20:24:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd get a fresh start with a new blog. I realize that I'm a moron for deleting my old one since I could've maybe used some of the material to prove to someone that I possess decent written communication skills, but that's all in the past now. I deleted the old one because I got the jitters about some of the things I had posted and didn't really want my name attached to any of it...so it goes.

I'm currently back on the workaholic wagon off of which I had fallen during summer. It feels good to have productivity coursing through my veins again. I hope that I can learn to relax and enjoy vacation one day. I think one has to have children first.

I thought I'd give you a link to some of the things on which I've been working for my job. Click Here to See French-stuff aplenty!

The top three sites are sites that I created myself that eventually will serve as a reference for later assignments. Enjoy.