conversation with adler tonight. because he sometimes reads this, we'll refrain from the well-earned nickname.

conversation turned to medill, and i relayed a story i had meant to relay in this space before: i received a letter a few weeks ago from a soon-to-be medill alum, writing in his pre-college-graduation exuberance about phrases like "The Real World" and "Unparalleled Medill Experience" and "Amazing Classmates and Professors" and "Please Make a Donation."

i don't know if i learned much from my medill experience that wasn't common sense or basic grammar. i learned to spell the words 'judgment' and 'benefiting' and i learned that the word 'over' refers to physical space; in the instances where you are referring to quantity, you should use 'more than.' (as in, 'ben has offended more than 15 wnur coworkers in his time there.' [and not 'ben has offended over 15 coworkers since joining wnur.']) [medill probably emphasized that one should not overuse parentheticals. i skipped class that day.]

so, yes, other than the 'trade school'-type work of (non-digital) video editing, all i retained i learned from getting my b- in basic writing.

apparently, however, the bright-eyed youngster soliciting money from my insufficient funds didn't even learn a thing from basic, as he opined that 'a Northwestern tuition covers just over half of the cost of a student's education,' or something to that effect. but he did definitely write 'over,' and not 'more than.' [note: i never met her, but i'd imagine that mango would have beaten the crap out of this dude.]

so the question becomes, what is the proper way to respond to this little bit of irony? adler came up with the answer...

"get out the red pen, circle the word 'over,' and mark a big 'F' at the top of the letter. return that in the solicitation envelope."

sadly, however, i didn't come up with that idea and have since thrown out the letter. sigh.

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i received a great piece of mail on thursday, but i now realize that i missed the deadline to act on it. the national letter carriers association of america (or something) hosted a food drive on saturday. drop canned foods in your box, and they'll bring it to a food bank. what an idea! sadly, i forgot to do this. i guess i can bring my green beans by myself.

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so there's a bestseller out called on bullshit, written by a princeton (i believe) philosophy professor. it's mostly about advertising and "pundits" and the 24-hour cable "news" cycle. i do not think it's about using phrases like "from that perspective" and "moving forward," which are the key phrases of bullshit that my boss uses. morley safer told me about it tonight. i don't think i'll buy the book, although i'm sure unstadt's found one on kazaa. i should call that bastard soon.

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i've always loved the "amazon super saver" program, but i'm getting a bit annoyed by the length of time on my most recent order. it seems like about a week has been the genral time for me to receive a product, but i'm coming up on two weeks for my most recent order, and still receiving the "not yet shipped" message when i check out my account. i'd really like to hear that mountain goats album, because i lurve the mountain goats. i should also buy john darnielle's pre-4ad records, because that mofo can write some songs.

i didn't like the spoon record upon first listen...i was hoping for more of the manic pace of "small stakes" and "the way we get by," as i really really loved kill the moonlight. however, by listen four or five, i'm really really into it. they're really just a simple pop band, and the songs are melodic and simple, and, it turns out, really really good. that's all.

top records of 2005, at this point:
bloc party - silent alarm
bright eyes - i'm wide awake it's morning
spoon - gimme fiction
decemberists - picaresque
hot hot heat - elevator
kings of leon - aha shake heartbreak
trail of dead - worlds apart

the trail of dead is the record among these that i don't like that much.

eagerly anticipating:
robert pollard - from a compound eye double CD
probably other ones, too.

sleater-kinney is such an odd band to me, because they're so good and so established and they aren't all aggro so that i'm not going to like them and their one beat album was so well-received and presumably envelope-pushing, but i've never gotten into them. i really liked the 25 seconds of all hands on the bad one that we played at gurs' a month ago, but then i decided i'd rather hear graham smith's ponyoak. i'd really like to get his final battle album, which is largely unavailable and came out last summer.

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speaking of graham smith, i wonder how my friend chuck is doing. i sent him some more cds to lesotho in january. [i had previously sent some the previous march, and then received a 'you are the greatest person in the world letter' - it was fabulous - the following september.] i hope he's received them. he may be returning to this side of the pond soon...that'd be awesome.

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this was long. however, i prefer the 'one long post about many topics' method to the 'several posts on the same day on multiple topics' approach. i don't know why. neither way is better or worse. i'd be better off asleep, or reading, right now.