You can find me at...

This blog is pretty much dead, on account of me not ever posting anything new to it. I'm going to leave it "up" because perhaps I'll restart it at some point, but for now, all my new posts are going to the other blog that I collaborate on with some Austin friends. Because it is a collaborative blog, only some of the posts are mine. Usually I mark the ones I've authored with a "J$" at the end. The address for this blog is:

nerds4words.blogspot.com

Also, I've been having some problems with my hotmail account, and I think some emails are being mistakenly blocked by hotmail. Don't know why... So, if you've written to me at the mavengloiven@hotmail.com and I haven't responded, didn't get to me. If so, try me at my school address:

jmoore@mail2.udallas.edu

School is going well, but very busy. Reading, writing papers, preparing for class. I know this sounds familiar, right?

Cheers,
James Moore
aka J Money
aka J Dolla
aka J$

Some new stuff and an old poem

I've really neglected this blog - mainly because I've been writing for another blog the past month. A friend of mine, Ted, suggested a community blog where anyone could post and we could read each other's stuff and comment. So far only Ted and I -and Ted's friend PsDiddy have contributed, but it's pretty good stuff - check it out if you are interested. It's called:

nerds4words.blogspot.com

It was odd not going up to Bowie two weeks ago at the start of school. It's even weirder not having a job or anything, just waiting for classes to start as I resume my doctoral degree. I feel like a first-class slacker. But, I start next Wednesday, so I'm sure I'll be plenty busy. Turns out my Enlightenment Lit class was cancelled, so I'll be taking a class on the American writer Saul Bellow. I'll post his books we'll read when I get my syllabus, in case anyone wants to try some Bellow. He's modern (he died last year), and his books are a little more accessible than Fielding's. Anyway, more on that later.

I'm listening to some tunes by a great band called "Say Hi To Your Mom." I first found out about them through Amazon.com's free music downloads - I think they have 5 or 6 free ones on there if you want to check them out. They have a new CD out called "Impeccable Blahs." The free songs are from their first 2 albums, and have very little production, so at times the lead singer's voice is not perfect - but it's all part of that "low-fi" indie charm, right? If you want to get the free songs, go to amazon.com, and click on "music" on the left. Then, at the top of the music page is a link to "free music downloads." When there, search "Say Hi" and you'll get the list of songs you can download. IF you like them, ITunes has all of their songs.

Okay, as promised, here's a poem I wrote a long time ago. My sister said she liked my poem, "Mutated Space Elvis" and wanted me to post some others, so this is for you, Steph. This poem was inspired by a childhood conversation that Steph and I had about what was so wrong with Swiss Cheese, and I came to the conclusion that it smelled like bad breath. Of course, most cheese smells either like bad breath or a really loaded fart, so that wasn't so perceptive of me, even though it was kind of funny. Ahh, youth.

SWISS CHEESE, A SONNET

Cheese that is Swiss,
my dear mister or miss,
the kind with many holes
one eats with ham on rolls,
tastes exactly, mark this:
like nasty halitosis.

So don't consume the foul, horrid cheese,
or you'll make your loved ones choke and wheeze,
and say "Enough!"
"I can't take anymore of that bad breath stuff!"

I need four more lines to make this a sonnet,
so I need to go and get right on it,
thinking of extra words that go with my theme,
well, look, now I've got the standard fourteen.

(c) James Moore, Alcoholocaust Poetry 1992

Back to school

Well, I've really been neglecting this blog during July - now that school's about to start up I will most likely be posting some things about the classes I'm taking and my graduate school experience, generally speaking. I'm also reading quite a few books now, so I'll begin posting some titles soon in case anyone wants to read along too. Right now I'm about to start an English Enlightenment-era novel by Samuel Richardson called PAMELA, and then next a novel that Henry Fielding wrote (called SHAMELA) shortly thereafter to repudiate Richardson's work, and then a shorter Fielding novel called JOSEPH ANDREWS and then a long Fielding novel called TOM JONES. If anyone is interested, let me know - it'd be fun to have some discussion going.

Talladega Nights opens tomorrow! Woo Hoo!

More later...

I'm back!

Phew! Can you smell that horrible stench coming from Cyberspace? Yup. That's my blog - getting stale and, as Nacho Libre would lament, so "a-stinky." I figured it was about time to say something, so here I am saying something. I've actually been doing a lot of nothing lately, spending my last summer vacation before the hell of doctoral studies breaks loose in my life in about a month. More on that later.

I think this blog is going to be dedicated to GOOD vs. BAD. So, here goes -

GOOD: Al Gore's new movie "An Inconvenient Truth." Yes, the world may actually be coming to an end this time. GO WATCH THIS MOVIE!

BAD: Nacho Libre. The movie was... a-stinky... Not even a cameo by Uncle Rico could have saved it.

GOOD: The new, extremely mellow CD by Alexi Murdoch, "Time Without Consequence," coming to an IPOD near you.

BAD: Britney Spears' new look... I call it "Country-Trash-Milkjug" ...

GOOD: The elipsis... better than a period, a comma or a dash... light and crisp and no aftertaste...

BAD: Insects... I went night Geocaching with my wife last week and had 42% of my blood drained out by some kind of cosmic killer mosquitos. The bites simply won't heal and seem immune to calamine lotion and hydrocortisone. I look like I have the pox all over my legs.

GOOD: Geocaching, the most postmodern of games. Check it out at geocaching.com

BAD: Old age. Man, my eyesight is getting worse and worse. And my hearing, and my memory, and my baldness... hmm... what was I talking about?

GOOD: George Bush... that's right, he's good! He stands for truth, justice, and the American way! USA! USA! USA! USA!

BAD: Iran, Iraq, Afganistan, North Korea, and of course, France. These countries all stand for the opposite of what we stand for, and therefore they represent lies, injustice, and the Un-American way! BOO! BOO! BOO! BOO! BOO!

GOOD: Irony - you can say one thing, but mean something else. This confuses some people, but for others it's fun.

BAD: Robots - they are coming and they will not be happy. Remember this!

Back from vacation

Well, we made it back from our 3,000+ mile jaunt to Yosemite and back. We had a swell time, and we were able to see some of the most beautiful and amazing sites that the USA has to offer: Carlsbad Caverns, The Grand Canyon, Sequoia Nat'l Park, Yosemite, and the beach/marine preserve along San Simeon Bay of the California coast. We learned some eye-opening things...

1. Yosemite Park bears are highly intelligent and frequently break into cars in search of human food. Seeing that California elected Arnold Schwartzenegger as their governor, this is a pretty strong indication that the bears are evolving faster than the humans are, and thus we can probably expect these bears to start carjacking and taking hostages in the next 10 years or so.

2. Apparently it isn't just human adolescents who get tired and need to take lots of time off from school to catch up on their rest after long nights of perusing MySpace. California seals and sea otters also occasionally leave their friends after an extended period of swimming at sea to bask on an isolated beach and flip cool, wet sand on their backs with their flippers while they doze in the warm sun. We know this because we spent an afternoon with a seal last week. We got video to prove it, if you don't believe me.

3. Humans feeding wild animals (birds, bears & squirrels) seems fun, but can have dire consequences. These animals turn into filthy beggars, and will exhibit non-wild animal traits such as approaching humans for handouts, deceptively using distractions (birds flying in people's faces) to get at food (squirrels sneaking around back to dig into garbage), and even alcoholism and homelessness. We saw one squirrel weaving around, totally smashed, his fur all wrinkled and soiled, holding a tiny sign that read, "CANT FEED SKWIRRUL FAMLY, GOD BLESSS." It was totally pathetic.

4. I also decided to lay off Texas and Texans for awhile, as I've seen worse behavior on this trip (mostly in the vicinity of Los Angeles). Everything you heard about crazy drivers in LA, people waving guns out of the windows of minivans traveling at 95 mph while making deals with their agents on their cell phones, careening down mountain passes & guzzling energy drinks, is pretty much true. Also, the trucks drive so fast there that they have "Runaway truck lanes." If a truck loses control (or its brakes), there appear from time to time, when coming down a mountain, lanes available that branch off the main highway where a speeding, runaway 18-wheeler can go to slow down and eventually stop (in an enormous pile of dirt). I'm not making this up.

5. Finally, I learned that Texas is much hotter than California, and that if you are a female art teacher in Austin, it's not a good idea to pose topless for a friend, when said friend will eventually use your pictures in an enormous virtual art exhibit on the web. Austin seems pretty "weird" in some ways, but if Austin were an ice cream bar, it would look like this: Lots of "nuts" on a chocolate outer coating - but once you bite into it, the center is just plain vanilla - if you know what I mean. It's dull and white and very, very frigid. Also, there's the stick part, which could be said to represent the stick up our butts, that makes us panic whenever we are confronted with such horrible realities as this current one: that people are actually naked underneath all their fashionable clothing. Gasp!

Good to be back. Hope you all are doing well.

Da Vinci Code & Man-eating Bears

I am officially an ex-employee of Bowie High School, as of yesterday. That feels weird. (long pause)

Well, anyway, time to move forward, right? For those of you who do not know, I will resume doctoral studies in literature at the University of Dallas this fall. Actually, this blog was created with the intention of sharing my experiences in grad school with all my friends in cyberspace. More about that later...

We finally saw "The DaVinci Code" yesterday (and neither of us had read the book, so it was kind of a surprise). Of course, I'd heard the buzz about the book - as well as some of the controversy. I was a bit shocked that I actually liked the movie and felt that it was pretty decent Hollywood entertainment, with a little added bonus of metaphysics, history, and far-fetched religous speculation. I suppose what I'd like to say is that I'm also quite surprised that certain Christian groups are so worked up about it. I don't want to give away the plot for those who haven't seen it, but I guess the big question that the movie raises is this: Could Jesus have been married? And that question begs this other question: If Jesus had been married, would that change anything about the way we view him? I've been thinking about it, and I really don't see how it does. It's not like the bible says "Jesus was NOT married!" The bible simply doesn't ever address that question. So what's the big freaking deal? I wish someone would explain what is so dangerous or wrong about asking this kind of question.

Well, you mull that over and get back with me about it. I'm checking out for a couple of weeks for vacation, and if I'm not devoured by hungry bears while sleeping in my tent, I'm sure I'll have at least one interesting story to share from our travels. Until then, keep it real! Goose-fraba.

Finals week

Well, this is it. Only 4 more days until the school year is over, and if all goes the way I want it to, only 4 more days left of my public school teaching career. I have a profound yearning to bitch and moan about how sucky teaching usually is, or how I feel so terribly used and degraded most days, and so forth, blah blah blah. I could also start complaining about the other crappy things in the world, both locally (LET'S DEFOREST AND POLLUTE AUSTIN... WOO HOO!) and globally (LET'S NEVER STOP GOING TO WAR... YAY!!!), but instead I'm going to focus this blog on something positive for a change.

So, I've decided that it's time to bask in the glow of a warm fuzzy, or a kudo, or a happy thought. I'm looking around, trying to find something good in life that I can express my gratitude for, excluding the obvious alcholic beverages and sleep. And you know what I've decided? Not enough is said about frozen waffles. Think about it. They are plentiful, cheap, and tasty. Many of them are fortified with an unusual number of essential vitamins and minerals, and are an important part of a healthy, balanced diet. They are easy to cook and easy to eat, even if you wear dentures. They taste great with just butter, or with syrup, honey, or jam - or, if you are extremely bold - even molasses. They contain useful fiber, they come in a variety of fun shapes and sizes, including the standard square or the interesting circle. They can be stored for long periods of time in a simple freezing unit, and even if they accrue icicles from over freezing, they are still edible, which is more than you can say for other frozen treats such as ice cream, ice milk, or ice cream bars. There is really nothing so magically, fantastically syrupliscious, no tasty, pastry-ish treat as perfect and as neat than the fabulous, grabulous, succulent frozen waffle!

So, let's all say three cheers for frozen waffles. Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! Hip hip, hooray! When the world drops a steaming pile of hooey on your plate, don't despair! Scrape it off, wash the plate, and make some frozen waffles!