Ah, the eye of the generals hurricane. I'm just bumming around, sleeping, reading, moving, painting. It's a really blessed time here in Columbus, OH.

I know many of you, especially wsasianboy was wondering about Daywatch, and at least one of you, rae_too_serious, have already seen it. Allow me to say that it was a very good flick, but for different reasons than Nightwatch. If you're looking for an action romp full of explosions and fistfights, your hunger will probably remain unsatiated. Character development is a little stronger here, along with the dynamic between members of the Night and Day watches. It also uses one of the least used world conquerers, Tamerlane, as the basis of a storyline, which I thought was quite interesting.

Hey, there's also a total eclipse tonight, or actually very early in the morning, so get up early and enjoy it!

Ugh. I'm done writing. 40 pages over four days in the last week. I wrote essays on Consumerism, Urbanization, historiography, the 1960s/1970s, women and labor, consumer credit, and globalization. Now, I wait until Friday before I sit in front of the firing squad and defend those answers.

I think i'm developing carpal tunnel. my right hand sounds like a pop gun when I clench it. Maybe playing SimCity DS in my down time isn't helping.

Oh, I am SUPERSTOKED about DayWatch tomorrow! FINALLY, Russian Vampires HAVE COME BACK...TO COLUMBUS!

But, how am I celebrating finishing my written exams? Well, I'm moving in a new roommate this week. I'm going to work on a lecture or two for next quarter. I'm going to read a few more books and do some preparation for orals, but more importantly...I'm going to reread "The Stand." After reading "Cell" a few weeks ago, I sort of remembered how good The Stand was, but don't remember it well enough, so it's now on the docket.

That's all, oh, everyone should check out some Flight of the Conchords, especially The Bowie Song, and Most Beautiful Girl in the Room.

So, I start writing my exams around 6AM on Friday.

I'm completely apathetic. I can't even read reviews anymore. Not even my own. I'm so burned out on History. I've got to do some more to get ready, but I'm not sure I can even stomach it.

Everyone says that i'll do fine; but that's what everyone says to everyone who takes their general exams. Mostly, they're probably right. Generally, only about one person fails per year, out of the 10 or so that attempt it, and I've avoided most of the pitfalls that would make me that guy.

But still, no matter how prepared I am, I am not looking forward to writing 40 pages in 96 hours. All about questions that I can only realistically be partially ready for. I'm also approaching this process with a little more questioning than most of my graduate school companions...I'm actually making pains to place myself within the discipline. What sort of stuff do I do? Why? What other historians am I in "conversation" with? And these are questions that are difficult to answer. I barely believe the bullshit I come up with, I can't imagine what my examiners will say to it.

I just read Stephen King's Cell, which I would recommend to Stephen King and/or zombie fans. The ending isn't Stephen King "bad," but it's not real good, either. I think i'll reread The Stand after generals.

I also went to the Ohio State Fair a few days ago. What an experience. Interestingly, the best parts of the fair were the reasons the fair is in existence. Livestock shows, animals, etc. I got to say "Sup, Tortoise!" to a huge aldabra that was purported to be 135 years old, and I hand fed a waterbuffalo and an alpaca. But, I also had pretty crappy sweet potato fries, and the freak show was staffed by goths who weren't really freaky...although one of the dudes must have had scurvy or something, because he was eating a lemon like it was an apple.

So, I'm back from MI, where unloading about 12 foot by 8 foot by 8 foot of crap for Shannon and Jeff completely wasted me. Roadway quoted them around 3500 lbs., which Shannon and I did pretty much alone, with only about an hour of help from random samaritians from her new department.

I've written my sexuality historiography essay, but now i've got to write my women's movements essay. ugh. I can't wait for Sept. 1 so I can be done with this bullshit and start devoting time to my teaching and research instead of this broad spectrum stuff.

Sorry, i'm just brain dead. Unless I get questions about women's, modern u.s., or economic history, i'm pretty useless right now.

3 more weeks.

So, July has consistently been my "traveling" month, and this month did not disappointed, and I still have quick trips to Michigan and Chicago on the docket for the next month. In fact, this update comes to you live from the Tampa Airport.

Some highlights-

1-Reno, NV. This is where July traveling started, going to see Julia and her family, along with long time hanger-on, Brian Cody. Reno is a nice enough place, and we took a day trip to Lake Tahoe, which is a freezing cold lake, but Brian and I canoed along a portion of it, and had a good time. In Reno, Julia and I reconfigured our romantic relationship to one that is nearly non-existent. We're taking an extended break so she (and I, I guess) can find ourselves. Surprisingly enough, the trip was much better after this desicion. I'm pretty sure my life won't change much now that I'm more or less single. I'm still a dork who would rather watch bad movies and sing karaoke than go trolling at bars.

2-Las Vegas, NV. I have almost no love for Las Vegas. It's hot as Hell, and expensive to boot. We (Julia, her family, and I) stayed at the Luxor, which apparently now worships CarrotTop. The best thing about Vegas was without a doubt, the Cirque Du Soleil show "Love," based on the music of the Beatles. It is the best thing I've ever seen committed to the stage. Awesome dancing, acrobatics, and amazing sound. An absolute must-do if you're ever in Vegas.

3-Panama City, FL. After flying back to columbus and packing Julia up, we moved her to Gainesville so she can go to law school. I then went to Panama City, where I saw Dad and Chris, and of course hung out with the gang.
Highlights of that trip include--Guitar Hero II. Wow, I don't even like the guitar, but i was hooked on that thing. made me even more excited about RockBand, which isn't even coming out on a console I own. Unfortunately, I was not at the lakehouse long, but was there long enough to win the first even in the video game decathalon (Mario Kart 64), win a game or two of Cranium, and save Jason Franklin from a watery grave--in no particular order. I'm sorry that I kicked lukkaya out of my bed, though...I must not have been thinking straight :)

Well, that's about all. I've got to finish getting ready for exams, so I've got a lot of work infront of me. Take it easy.

Didn't really do much this week. Like I mentioned before, all i do is read this summer. Although I have been working on my course in the fall. I decided to assign the Education of Henry Adams, the second half at least. There won't be a textbook, just the source reader that all of us have to assign. I hope the kids dig the book; I think it may be the most important book that every American should read.

Basketball has been hit or miss recently. More miss, to be precise. Although someone did compliment me on my post play yesterday. He must not watch a lot of basketball.

I saw Live Free or Die Hard, because Severance left the theater in the middle of the week. I guess i'll have to catch it on the flip side. LVoDH was really good if you like action movies. It gets a little crazy, but I think they were just trying to distance the terrorist attack from 9/11 comparisons.

I tell you what, if there was a game that could convince me to get a PS3 or a Xbox360, it would be RockBand. I salivated over the article I saw in Gameinformer.

This weekend was Community Fest, lovingly referred to as "Comfest" in the Columbus area. Besides the fact that I burned the tip of my nose and about 6 square inches on my forearms, it was alright. Expensive food, mediocre to good music, shit tons of people. In Columbus, women can walk around topless (thanks to a Franklin County courtcase in 1991 that declared that breasts were not "private parts," the wording of the indecent exposure law), but usually never do except for large events like these. I haven't seen so many exposed breasts since my crazy parties at New College.

I spent most of the time at the festivities yesterday and today hanging out with my to-be roommate, Hunter. Hunter is a player. He's quite attractive, a slim/toned body, about 5'9/5'10, blue eyes, really put together sort of guy. At one point, we're sitting on the grass chatting with some friends, and he hops up and runs to these two girls and they walk off. About half an hour later, he comes back with them, and introduces me to them, and then the four of us hang out for a long while. Both are pretty good looking. It became clear that I had been tagged as the wingman, so I tried to work it out for my boy. We came back to my place, hung out for a bit, and then I offered to drive the other girl home so he could do his thang.

I've never really had friends for whom I was expected to be the wingman. In high school, i wasn't really serviceable as a wingman because I wasn't really cool enough. In addition, most of the gang didn't operate in that fashion when it came to women (Neither Pope nor Allen nor Finlay needed it, for a gamut of reasons). In college, I guess I may have been too popular for a sidekick role, and was in a very visible relationship, so I wasn't useful there either. In my experience with him, Hunter consistently attracts multiple women, and sometimes needs a friend or a hanger-on to be sideswiped.

It's really interesting to me to play that role. I've never really worked in that fashion, and it takes a different toolkit in intersexual negotiations. It's unfortunate for Hunter's sake, though, that my services as a wingman are pretty limited because of my relationship with Julia. Oh well.

Maybe it won't though...this girl that I picked off for Hunter has called me twice tonight, even after I talked about my girlfriend at various junctures.

Hey, what can I say? I'm not a player...I just crush a lot.

Well, the quarter more or less ended last week. I finished grading in almost criminal fashion. My students finished their exams around 1100AM, and I had them done by 1100PM. Keep in mind that in the middle, I had a econ exam to take.

Now, I'm preparing for generals in earnest. I'm keeping pretty close to my 1.5 books a day pace, only writing my reviews is slowing me down, i've got a backlog of four to do tommorow. Hopefully I can keep this up until July 7, that would put me in good stead for the rest of the summer once I get back from Nevada and Florida.

Tom moved out today. He and his fiance are doing a little road trip before they head to see his folks in Australia. Apparently it is more difficult to leave the country for a year or so after you get a green card from marriage, so they are going before the wedding. It's weird. I really dislike living alone. It's not that I need someone to hang out with 24 hours a day, but the place seems without life. My to-be roommate and I are doing pretty well, though. He's moving in around the end of August, and we're organizing our communal material, selling off extras, etc.

Tom's impending marriage is also eye opening. I'm finally getting to the point in my life where acquaintances and friends are as often as not engaged/married. Eventually that will even slide into just marriage. I think in some ways, I'm "ready" for marriage, but I don't know. I'm very comfortable with monogamy, being intimate with someone, etc., but marriage seems like such a serious event. I don't do 'serious' well.

The guinea pigs, who I have taken to collectively calling "Los Cobayos" and I have reached an understanding. I spend some time with them everyday at different times, and I spend much of the day sitting no more than 5 feet from them. I feed them well and often, and they allow me to pet them a little. I also bought some nail files to deal with their claws instead of nail clippers, which totally freak them out.

The other day I got a pair of "Starburys," a new shoe by basketball star Stephon Marbury. Their gimmick is that they cost $15. That's cheap. Haven't tried them out yet. I'll do that on the morrow, most likely.

Oh, I got a good grade on a paper that I'm pretty happy with about women's history and economics. I may even post a little of it here for posterity's sake.

Oh, big news...Columbus should be getting DayWatch either next week or week after. Excellent.

I know, I know, I may post something worthwhile eventually.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/livejournal-fanfic-battle.php

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/law-svu-episode.php

Two things.

1-I'm about halfway through book three of Song of Fire and Ice, A Storm of Swords. I don't think Martin can write good news.

2-I was watching a bit of TV earlier when they had on a medicine commercial for eyedrops to treat "chronic eye dryness." That aside, it was going through the warnings at the end of the commercial, and it was pretty standard until a fateful warning...

"Restatia has not been through clinical trials for patients with viral herpes eye infections."

Herpes in your eye? What in the hell do you have to do to get herpes in your eye? Damn.

Oh, and in addition, Puzzle Quest is killing me. I see the gameboards when I close my eyes. that's dangerous.

Pirates of the Caribbean 3 was pretty good, fans of the previous two, or fans of Geoffrey Rush need to get on that. They did an especially interesting job with Jack Sparrow in this one, as well.

I finally got my hands on Puzzle Quest for the DS. I was a little hesitant going into it, but I just played for about 2 hours without realizing it. It's a little too based on luck for my taste, but it's a solid game.

This quarter is like Bruce Willis--it's dying hard. I've got another paper to write, and a bunch of grading to do while I continue generals prep. Hopefully this weekend will be effective.

It's weird with Julia not here. She's already been gone for 3 weeks, with about 6 until I see her again. I just don't know what to do, I'm going to be with her for a little over a week in July and then who knows? A week in December? Maybe Spring Break? I'm not too excited about spending just three weeks with her out of the next 52. And it won't get any better the year after that--I'm not getting any younger/attractive over here.

Cheer up, emo Lawrence.

Grad school is a helluva job.

I'm preparing for my generals examinations, which is the second (and generally accepted as the most difficult) of three steps to receiving a Ph.D, sandwiched in between the Master's and Doctorate disserations. Today, I finalized my field examiners for a test I'm taking at the end of August.

OSU History is pretty typical. I have three field examinations, Modern U.S., Women's, and Economic histories. I go home and write 20/10/10 pages in 48/24/24 hour increments. Then a week later, I sit through 2 hours of oral examinations. My field lists of books hovers a little over 200, which I may be expected to draw from in the examinations. Starting the second week in June when classes end, I'll do 10 books a week for 5 weeks, then take two weeks off to go to Nevada and Panama City and come back and wrap up my preparations with more books and test runs of questions until the middle of August.

Generals is usually the straw that breaks people's backs. Most people who opt to leave the program do it once generals start looming. I haven't been the quickest of my cohort to reach generals, but I'll be respectable, probably 5th or 6th out of those who came in without an M.A. My article slowed me down a bit, but I'm starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of that tunnel. Probably one more revision draft before I ship it out to journals.

This month marks 20 years I've spent in school. That seems like a loooooooooong time. Probably because it is.

Anyway, 28 Weeks Later was pretty good; not quite as good as the last one, but worth a watch. The previews were somewhat misleading, but not too bad. It's the American army securing Britain, which leads to most of the movie's issues. It was funny that the whole "zombie" thing was the one point where I didn't have a hard time suspending my disbelief.

And at least here in Columbus, we got a preview of DayWatch. Those crazy Russians.

Hello, all.

I've been rocking out. With Julia gone, I'm back to being a bachelor in all ways except chasing tail. I'm working at random hours of the day, playing video games, etc. I've been rocking out Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. I messed up early on and sold the long sword, so I'm sorta stuck on some of my quests, but I'm approaching the end. I'm still looking for Puzzle Quest, but haven't been able to find a copy.

I'm also on book three of George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series--A Storm of Swords. I've ran through the first two books, and I'm enjoying it.

Other than that, I've got absolutely nothing to say. I've been reading a lot and writing only slightly less. I hope everyone is having a good time.

My dad called the other day with some bad news.

Pandora, my cat, was going to be put down that night.

She was going pretty well until the very end, she was off her grub for two days, and Dad noticed she was keeping her tongue out. So, a trip to the vet resulted in the discovery that she had advanced bone cancer that caused a tumor in her lower jaw. Nothing could be done, her ability to eat was essentially gone.

I remember the first day I saw her. One of my mother's coworker's cats had a litter of kittens. Without my knowledge, she agreed to bring one home, after hearing me make some comments about wanting a cat. She picked me up from Jinks and took me to Northside to pick "something" up. I went into the office and there was a pet carrier with a little black furball with a white jaw and paws. She was a little skittish, as young cats are wont to be, but eventually grew to tolerate our presence. Until she was fixed, she even enjoyed it on occaision.

She was a good cat. I remember Pontifax and I once doing a school project (The infamous Botany Book), and casting Pandora as the main villian. She took to it well.

Unfortunately, my dorm did not allow pets, and my roommates in Columbus are allergic. But, Pandora and I always hung out when I came home. In her older age, she mellowed a bit, and would sit in my lap like when she was a kitten. She hated the pitbull that Dad and Chris brought into the house, and really only ventured out when Butch was in his cage. She still managed to swipe at him a couple of times to keep him in his place.

Here's to 12 years of cat-companionship.

I dont want to work tonight.

This quarter is particularly rough. I'm taking a graduate economics course on economics history. Economics students suck at history. The professor isn't much better. So I sit there twice a week and stare at the graffiti on the chair ahead of me, which claims support for the Cleveland Indians and says "this sucks."

I'm also taking a course on Women's History. Half of the class is women's studies kids. I haven't made many friends in that sector. I refuse to use the word "Foucault" in class; I instead say "F-Bomb," and that doesn't help. The historians in the class aren't hip to theory, but I had to explain to the women's studies kids who Hegel was. Hegel. Oh well.

The class I'm teaching is going pretty well. I've had a few kids take my class through word of mouth, which always makes one feel good, and I don't think I'm disappointing them.

Julia leaves for Mexico in two weeks, ending a 9 month project of living together. I'd be lying if I said it went well, but it wasn't catastrophic. She isn't ready to settle down and be domestic. I've been ready to settle down for a decade. We'll try the long distance thing again and see what happens.

Hot Fuzz is absolutely worth the price of admission, it should be a crime not to see it, for most of you, at least.
Grindhouse is another story. Worth it, but sitting through the first 3/4 of Tarantino's Death Proof will cause you to roll your eyes numerous times unless you're a high level Tarantino devotee. The last quarter of Death Proof is good, and Kurt Russell eats a plate of nachos that made me hungry.

Alright, now it's time to comb through 30 year old issues of the New York Times. Cue the Bay City Rollers...
S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y...NIGHT!!!

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox_searchlight/daywatch/hd/

Da, Tavarische!

Movies-
Smokin' Aces- Pretty good, I love Jeremy Piven, back from PCU. It's a stomping good time and Alicia Keys is hot seven ways from Sunday.
300- Do I even need to get into this? This is Sparta and shit. I think it's the feelgood movie of the year.

Books-
George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice- I just finished Game of Thrones yesterday, and I have the next book ready to roll, but need to get some stuff done first. A lot of my friends had talked me into it, and they were right to do so. He does a good job of guiding the reader. So good, that most times I don't even realize it.

Music-
Sirius Satellite has started a new channel, 90's Alternative. It's the music of my late youth. Right now, for instance, they're playing Prodigy's Firestarter. It has no commercials, and so far, not even any DJs, so it's non-stop badassery.

Other than these media, Life goes on. I had a questionable mole removed from my back, that was "displasia," which the guy said may be pre-cancerous, but they don't really know because they remove them all anyway. So, I have seven scratchy stitches on my back, and a realitively clean bill of health. I knew I was in trouble on the first day I went in because the form asked how many sunburns I'd had in my life. I laughed and put "15+" I guess I start paying for that now.
Julia's parents were here last weekend, and they had a good time. Of course, had to take them to the zoo, which is cool, because the Columbus Zoo is quite good, unfortunately my tortoises were not out. *now Sirius is playing Pearl Jam's Jeremy* But, the rhinocerous was active, as were the Pallas' Cats. For some reason, the Flamingos didn't mind the cold, either.
Anyone doing a NCAA tourney pool? Yeah, mine sucks. So far, I've only got three out of my four still in the competition (thanks a lot, Texas), and haven't done too hot up to this point. Fortunately, one of my competitors put Maryland winning everything, so he's fucked. Proper fucked.

My to-do list for this week, my Spring Break, is heinous. Certain obstacles, like my taxes, have been cleared, but too many remain, like finally get my article publishable, etc. And next quarter may just kill me, but I guess that is what grad school is all about.