The Big Day

Sunday I graded my final batch of student papers. I went to school about 9 pm and worked out the final grades. Today, Monday, I'll go to campus and sit around for students to drop by and pick up their lab reports and find out their final grades. Then I'll turn in the official grade roster. At that point, my job is done.

Oh, sure, the official retirement date is August 8, and I still have to clear out my stuff. But it's done. I'm free at last.

On my way home from school, late, I stopped at Safeway and bought two pints of HD ice cream. I finished one (black raspberry chip) watching "Meadowlands," thinking "Wow, now I can do whatever I want." I wanted to watch TV.

Listening to NPR yesterday I heard something that pissed me off. They were talking about some big videogame thing, where kids came as their favorite game characters and fancy orchestras played videogame music as though it was something smart. They interviewed some moronic kid who said he was dressed as his favorite, a guy who beats on hippies with a baseball bat. (They made him leave the bat in the car.)

Now, wait a minute. Beats up hippies with a baseball bat? Am I crazy, or isn't this a new level of retarded violence? Blasting evil enemy combatants or villains from an alien culture we've chosen to hate who are trying to kill "us" as hard as "we" are trying to kill them -- okay, it's not admirable but at least it's in cultural harmony. But bashing hippies with baseball bats? Hold on, those are MY friends. Irrational goofy love-everybody stoners? They aren't combat ready. That's not fair. That's like (literal) gay bashing and lynching blacks. That's sick. Stone cold evil.