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Subject:Well this is unlikely...
Time:03:38 am
I almost forgot about this from the other night, but I was reminded by being up really early today (Black Friday, I'm trying to find a cheap but valuable gift for my parents. Ugh).

It's not very often that listening to sports radio makes anyone really think. There's a lot of silliness, anti-intellectualism, cliched statements ... all in all, sports radio is about as useful to one's life as reality television.

ESPN Radio has a program called "The Sporting Life," which I had the pleasure of catching the end of on Wednesday-into-Thursday night just before 3:00am on Thursday. The last main segment on the program was a story about a girl in high school who was an excellent volleyball player and then got pregnant.

Unfortunately, I can't remember many of the specific details of the story, and a transcript doesn't appear to be available, but I'll give you a short recap of what I remember. There's also a preview of the piece here.

The main crux of the whole thing was the the girl and her family are fighting the schools regarding how they dealt with her pregnancy, especially in relation to her playing interscholastic sports and Title IX -- the famous legislation that led to the proliferation of women's sports in high schools and colleges. Among the issues were that the girl was kept from continuing her participation in the sport due to a lot of administrative nonsense, and when she was ultimately cleared to play by doctors, the coach severely limited her playing time. Aside from this, the coach also apparently disclosed information about her pregnancy to her teammates in violation of privacy rights, thereby damaging her reputation with the team.

I listened to this and wondered to myself, well, if I were in the coach's shoes, what would I do? What is the role of the coach in this situation? The girl in question gave some sound bites to the radio segment that included that she would have to approach volleyball a little differently. In particular, when you're pregnant, it's a pretty poor idea to dive into a hardwood floor in order to try to keep a ball in play. I recall that the segment said that she was an excellent volleyball player who played the full rotation on the court, suggesting that she could play both offensively (mainly being in charge of hitting the ball over the net) and defensively (mainly in charge of keeping the ball from hitting the ground).

Basically, if I'm a volleyball coach and I find out that one of my players is pregnant, I will be inclined to reassign her role in a way that limits the potential of hurting the fetus. If I'm the coach of that volleyball team, I feel that I am responsible for my players' physical well-being, and I should take any reasonable measure to make sure that my players are not putting themselves in unnecessary peril, and especially so when I'm the coach of a high school team.

I'll try to pull up some details on this one, but I'm curious to get your reactions. In particular, I want to know if I'm being an overprotective male figure. I doubt that I'm going to change my mind based on hearing that opinion, but at least I'll know that about myself if it's true.
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Subject:Albert Pujols wears red.
Time:11:01 pm
Albert Pujols (pronounced "poo-holes" for all non-baseball fans out there) just won his second National League Most Valuable Player award, recognizing his outstanding 2009 season. I caught a piece of the press conference on ESPN regarding this, and Pujols said something to the effect of "I have one ring [World Series Championship], but I've got ten fingers, so that means I need nine more."

This year, unfortunately, the New York Yankees won the World Series. It was their first since 2000, and their 27th title overall since the inception of Major League Baseball. The American League, of which the Yankees are a member, began in 1901. Yankees management has exhibited a ridiculous ability to spend money in search of baseball's top talent in order to win the World Series -- a process many baseball fans consider to be "buying the championship." That they only did so twice in the Aughts is something of poetic justice, considering the craziness that is the Yankee player payroll.

With apologies to Ichiro, Alex Rodriguez, Joe Mauer, Felix Hernandez, Roy Halladay, and many others, Albert Pujols may be the best player actively playing in MLB. If he takes his services to the free market, the Yankees will most likely offer him the largest sum of money and the greatest probability of winning the nine championships that he desires, however I fear that it will damage his, and baseball's, reputation.

As a Mariner fan, I would love it if we could find a way to pick up Albert from the St. Louis Cardinals, because it would almost assuredly mean that the Mariners would be more likely to win games and championships in the future. On the other hand, I would feel somewhat empty about it.

It strikes me that a player should spend his career with the team he makes his name with. If Joe Mauer left the Minnesota Twins to play for the Yankees, New York Mets, Boston Red Sox, the LA Dodgers, or a number of other teams, I think it would ultimately be a sad day for baseball. If Evan Longoria leaves Tampa, I think it'd be a sad day for baseball. I think it was a sad day for baseball when Jeremy Giambi left Oakland to play for the Yankees, when Ken Griffey Jr. left Seattle to play for the Cincinnati Reds, or Johnny Damon moving from Boston to New York, or when Mike Piazza was traded from Los Angeles to Florida to the Mets. What about all the great players who left Montreal? Randy Johnson? Pedro Martinez? Larry Walker? At least two of those three are Hall of Fame caliber.

Building a baseball team should be about being smart, like the Mariners picking up Franklin Gutierrez from Cleveland, not about being rich, like the Yankees signing Mark Teixiera, CC Sabathia, and A.J. Burnett last offseason.
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Subject:Life Is Strange
Time:01:00 am
Do you ever look back at things in your life and notice how certain things you're doing now are only possible because of a number of situations that you've been in?

I worked as a Public Address announcer at a basketball game at KeyArena on Sunday. This happened primarily because I met a guy who works for Seattle University when I was at the Hurricane. I went to the Hurricane that night to take it easy after a night of working for Seattle Pacific University. I got a job at SPU because of the work I did for athletics at Willamette. I got a good review from the guy in athletics at Willamette because of work I did for him, especially last fall when I was in graduate school. I got the job in athletics at Willamette because Andrew Gibbs urged me to apply for it. I know Andrew Gibbs mostly because we happened to visit Willamette as prospies on the same weekend and I was carrying the SMILE sign. I think the SMILE sign got me into Willamette. I made the SMILE sign because my Language Arts Teacher in 11th grade wanted to read to us out loud and I felt that making that sign was the best way to cheer someone up across the room.

Crazy, innit?

In the meantime, things are in flux. I took the job at the bowling alley in February partly under the assumption that we could expand or may be interested in expanding and adding a third bowling center (the ownership has control of the one I work at and another north of Seattle). It appears, for the time being at least, that we are not going to expand. This is difficult for me because, while I make enough money to pay down my student loans, I do not make enough to live in my own place, which I desire.

I've been working in college athletics recently, and I think I've made some good connections and am building a bit of a name for myself as a capable worker across several platforms including public address and statistical input. At Sunday's basketball game, I sat next to a marketing professional who works for the Seattle Storm (and previously worked for the Sonics), who seemed to suggest that there are ways into the professional game as well.

So I'm asking myself a question: If I got offered a college sports media-relations job, a bowling alley manager job, or a professional sports marketing job, which would I take? I'm not entirely sure, and it seems to me that all three WON'T come at the same time, but where should I angle myself? It's an interesting thought, and I'm not particularly looking for answers from others, but I just thought I'd share what's going on in my head on this one.
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Subject:Newsmedia
Time:03:50 am
I am becoming of the opinion that the newsmedia now tells us more about ourselves than it does about the actual news.

Take, for example, the recent news from China where President Obama bowed in respect in front of the Emperor of Japan. This news, in itself, doesn't tell us any more than how our President greeted a dignitary from another country, but some people are really freaking out about it.

So here's what I'm thinking: If you are flipping out about the fact that the President of the United States greeted a foreign dignitary with a respectful gesture common to the dignitary's country, you're probably an asshole.

Another example. You may have heard, read, or seen video about a collegiate women's soccer match. One of the participants, playing for the University of New Mexico, played the game in a spectacularly rough fashion, including several unnecessarily aggressive attempts on the ball, at least one punch to the back of an opposing player, and the money shot (if you'll forgive me the term): when she grabbed the ponytail of another player and pulled her to the ground.

My question in this, after having watched a bunch of soccer recently, was "Where the hell is the officiating? Those referees need suspending every bit as much as she did!" But that wasn't the reaction of many. In fact, on ESPN's "Pardon the Interruption," co-host Tony Kornheiser commented that many of the men who called his radio show that morning said that they would like to date her. (I guess because she likes it rough? Again with the "forgive the term")

If that's your reaction to that video, you're probably an asshole.

Now you may not be an asshole on either one, so please don't take this too personally if you happen to believe either one, but I feel that both of those positions are so divorced from reality that it's ridiculous and you should get that checked.
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Subject:Just in case
Time:03:21 am
I had an uncle pass away on November 1, while I was in New York. Before you get particularly sentimental and apologetic, I should let it be known that I was not close to this uncle in pretty much any fashion. He's attached to my dad's side of the family, whom I have generally not seen in the last seven or eight years, although I'm beginning to see them with greater frequency again because of things like this and my grandmother (dad's side) living in a nursing home over the last year.

Anyhow, the family held something of a memorial today, but, well, I don't know. There was no structure given to the event, the family simply had a big room open at the local Salvation Army and invited a bunch of people to basically come, be in it, and talk with each other. There was also a little paper that had a biography of my uncle in it.

Unfortunately, the biography had a number of questionable choices in it (if you have a two page summary of a person's life, is the fact that he once had "a black wooly monkey named 'Woolie'." really that important a detail?) and copy editing mistakes (eastern Washington is a region and should be written as I just typed it, not "Eastern, WA." as it is in the biography).

The event, in short, was basically everything that I would not want my own memorial to be. God forbid that it happen anytime in the near future, but if it should, please note a few things.

I want there to be an element of religion to my service. My church is important to me. I would like there to be music and singing. I would like there to be a recognition of sadness but an element of celebration. I would like there to be a point in the service to share stories. I wouldn't mind if there was a bio, but I'm not sure what should go into it... I get frustrated being known as just Smile Guy, or Haiku Writer, or Bowler, or Baseball Nut. I'd like Freaks N Geeks to be covered, but there's still more to me than that. I can't even get myself straight on what I want to present as myself all the time, so how could I expect someone else to?

Anyway, I'm expecting not to die in the near-term, but if I do for some reason, please keep these thoughts in mind.
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Subject:Sunday
Time:02:15 am
Sunday was long, and a bit intense.

I didn't get to sleep very well Saturday night. I'm not exactly sure why. If I had to guess at why, it would be because I didn't eat much on Saturday and was therefore low blood-sugar-y. That does it to a lot of people. I also was a little disappointed that I didn't get to go hang out Saturday night, go out to the Hurricane or whatever, because it was already 11pm when I got home and I had Sunday School to teach. Other than this, Saturday was pretty good, including playing flag football with baseball bloggers and having my baseball team's meeting in Bellevue that night. By the way, I'm going to learn how to catch for next season. Perhaps I should say goodbye to my knees.

So I taught Sunday School, and I wasn't all that prepared. Okay, whatever, I thought. Turns out we had more Kindergarteners and preschoolers (6) than I think we've had any week I've been there so far (and I've been there for four weeks). Okay, whatever, I thought. Turns out that the service ran long. Oof, a little bit. I had a bit of a lesson plan with me because the church provides us with one, but I improvised off of it and added a little game to try to extend our time. We did okay. It could have gone better, but all things considered, it went okay and I'm happy to not have that responsibility for a couple weeks.

I had my first adult bowling tournament tonight. It was a doubles nine-pin no-tap tournament, with handicap, and I bowled with my mom. Entry was $60 and the both of us bowled pretty damn well. I had a decent chance at throwing three perfect games (to clarify, that's because if you knocked down 9 it counted as a strike, not because I bowled out of my gourd). My mom beat me one game 236-239, and all-in-all we finished in 4th place, collecting $90 ($30 profit, $15 for each of us).

Right now, my main goal is to stay awake. I have a 6:15 flight out of Seattle to head to New York City for a week to see Elsa and do various things like see Avenue Q and the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY (which is a 4-hour drive away) for a week. I'll be back Monday night next week, scheduled for 9pm.

In Other News
I have purchased three tickets to go see John Oliver at the Snoqualmie Casino on Saturday, November 14th, at 8pm. At the moment, the three tickets are spoken for, however if you want to go, tickets can be found for $20 (+service fees) on ticketmaster. I would be happy to give you a ride so long as you're not ridiculously out of the way.

I am in the act of purchasing two tickets to KISS on the following day (Sunday, Nov. 15) at 7:30pm. The second ticket has not yet been spoken for. Drop me a line if you're at all interested in going. I would rather have someone purchase the second ticket from me, but if you would be willing to go if you could go free, let me know and I may just give it to you if I can't sell it.
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Subject:Holy jeebies.
Time:03:59 am
Today was the last of eight consecutive days of work at The Alley. I expect to not show up there on Thursday unless I happen to go there by sheer force of habit... and please let that not happen because I work there again Friday, have a day off on Saturday, and bowl in a tournament on Sunday there, before getting out of town for New York.

It was also, as they say, "one of those days." I had a number of times tonight that I felt incompetent, unhappy, or otherwise dumb and I was kicking myself. It got to be so many times that I had to know just what all there was, so I wrote them down and came up with a dozen different times over the course of the night where I felt one of the above emotions.

Here's some of the list. )

Somehow, and I don't know how or why, I ended up getting tipped a total of $19. I didn't even do anything special tonight... about the only thing I did was not blow up at customers despite some of them doing some really stupid things, but even then I asked a guy "What are you trying to do, break the machine?" as I walked by to fix it.

I was a bit curt tonight. It was not my best of nights, but thankfully I have a night off before the next one.
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Subject:Junk and Stuff.
Time:01:56 am
A couple of my coworkers like to play "gotcha" on the customers, trying to catch them doing things wrong and then shutting them down. I'm not a big fan of this because I feel like it creates an adversarial relationship between me and my customer. I'm already taking their money; that's adversarial enough.

Of course, rules need to be enforced... if we were to allow everybody to bring in outside food and drink, then the liquor control board could easily shut down our bar operations. If people are not paying attention, they could bust the pinspotters, which is a big problem if we're actually busy that night.

Between that and some of my coworkers complaining about each other recently, work hasn't necessarily been sunshine and lollipops all the time in the last couple weeks. Tonight, it felt like it was going to be "one of those nights," since we had several people who were drunk and stupid (which are often synonyms, but not always) disrespecting us and not understanding our instructions because they were not all there.

Once league cleared out, though, and I got to run the show a bit more, I got to relax and my night got a lot better. Yeah, I kept my eye on one of the guys who acted a fool, but when he mooned his friends (with few others around), I laughed and talked to them, instead of getting pissed and kicking them out. They ended up being willing to pay more than necessary for their bowling bill.

Other notes from, but not about, work:

I was downstairs and saw a CD with a bunch of music from the 1998 Grammy Awards, including Shawn Colvin's "Sunny Came Home" (Record of the Year), Hanson's "MMMBop" (nominated for Best New Artist), Paula Cole (who won Best New Artist), and Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity" (Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal). I like a couple of these songs, but only half-heartedly. I'm starting to think that Elliott's comment that the 1990s had no style has more merit than I initially considered.

If I had someone else cut my hair for me, I think I would want to do something in the style of Robert Palmer. Maybe somewhere in-between him, Michael J. Fox (Back to the Future) and Michael J. Fox (Spin City). Would that be way off the mark?
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Subject:Aaaaand downside.
Time:02:41 am
So remember that "cat magnet" PSA I posted a month-or-so ago? Well, instead of that tonight, I got a long Girls Gone Wild ad. I swear those things must be 90 seconds long.

This ad was a little strange because it was also promoting their "Top 50 best breasts ever."

That title leads me to several questions. First, I want to know* if they're talking about 25 women each with two breasts, or like one breast or the other of 50 women, or what. Secondly, what's their method here? I mean, Helen of Troy may have had a face that launched a thousand ships, but I'm going to go ahead and hazard a guess that the boobs probably launched a couple, too.

* - I don't actually want to know
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Subject:Notes from this weekend
Time:10:46 pm
I worked another Seattle Pacific University volleyball game on Saturday night. Since I got there more than an hour before gametime, I decided to have myself a short walk around most of their campus. It was nice, but not terrifically nice. It made me miss Willamette a lot, actually. It also made me miss the institution of college. What made me notice this, more than anything else, was the propensity of people I walked by to smile in acknowledgment and occasionally say "hi." That doesn't happen much regularly. Maybe I just need to go out and use the SMILE sign again. It's been a LONG time since I used that last.

I may get the chance to this week, though, at least in the first couple of days. One of my coworkers is taking something of a vacation this week, so I'm expecting to have Monday and Tuesday off entirely, going back to work each night Wednesday through Sunday. I'll probably post 42+ hours next week, all at the bowling alley.

On Wednesday this last week, one of the bowlers asked me if I wanted tickets to today's Seahawks game. I considered it for a bit... I'm generally a home-team fan of most any sport, I've not yet been to a Seahawks game at Qwest Field (though I graduated and had prom there in 2004), but it would cost me a bit of money. I decided to do it anyway.

I'm relatively glad I went. The Seahawks won by a score of 41-0 -- which is commonly referred to as a "blowout" to non-football-speaking readers out there -- and the guys near me were generally fun, but sitting where I was it just didn't seem as loud as I had thought it was supposed to. Maybe it was because it wasn't a particularly stressful or exciting game, but whatever.

One of the best parts of the game, actually, was not even part of the game. At halftime, there were a number of high school cheer and dance teams that came onto the field and did their thing with the amusingly named SeaGals. This was mostly ho-hum whatever, but there was this one girl in the southwest corner of the field who was just rocking out like no tomorrow. A lot of these people may have danced technically well, but this girl was bringing the energy like nobody else that I noticed on the field. For her efforts, she was kinda my hero for as long as I could tell which person she was.

I got home after some food and watched the end of the Twins/Yankees playoff series. I found myself being emotionally involved in a baseball game that I didn't really even have a rooting interest (except that the Yankees need to die), even more than I was emotionally involved in the football game that I had actually been to. I think what this means is that I'm really just a baseball fan, bred from a line of baseball fans, and I will continue to pass down whatever gene predisposes me to that to the next generation, should I ever have kids (which I expect to, just not now).

I think that's all.
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Subject:Okay Friendslist
Time:10:05 pm
So you don't want to go see KISS, huh? How about going over to the eastside and seeing The Daily Show's John Oliver?
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Subject:Some things
Time:12:55 am
Do my posts get eaten, so to speak, because I post them at the wee hours of the morning?

I'm thinking life would be more fun if I responded to one Craigslist post per week. Not necessarily to buy anything or throw my hat into the ring for some gig (like I have time for gigs. Hah.), but at least to comment.

For example, someone apparently is planning a wedding in the Seattle area and they want a string quartet to come play Journey. I might email them and tell them that, for the moment, they are my heroes for doing such a silly thing.

Another appears to want a nerdy and geeky game show host. I'm not sure I'm nerdy and/or geeky in all the ways that they seem to want, but I do relatively well with computers, I know my video games (especially early ones, which are more geeky than new ones), and I have decent overall pop-culture knowledge.

Fun times?
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Subject:Rules.
Time:02:00 am
There is, as much as I can figure, just one rule.

A person should treat all other people about as well as they reasonably can.

Always.

Detail )
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Subject:Life is really freaking weird.
Time:09:23 pm
I recently got the following two emails. They came from the President of the baseball league that I play in, and are addressed to all players in the league.

The first is a casting call for The Bachelorette. )

The second is an offer to join a trip to go play baseball in Cuba. )

Ridiculous.
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Subject:VIADUCT SONG
Time:03:31 am
The formatting on this is going to end up weird, but I'm going to roll with it.

I JUST WROTE ONE OF THE SONGS I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT FOR YEARS. The letters above lines of lyrics are the chords.

Em G C
Traffic in Seattle, it'll bring you to your knees
People may be nice here, but when they merge they won't say "please"
You let them in, they can't make their mind, then you get stuck
Behind some guy who's letting his load hang out the back of his truck

(Chorus)
Em Am
So take this song and listen, let it be your guide
As I look at traffic in this town and swallow my civic pride.
Driving here's no picnic and it's gonna make you wail
Better hope your neighborhood is getting link light rail

Em G C
The Ship Canal Bridge is backed up when you're going south
Idling there will turn most anyone into a potty-mouth
Cursing, sitting, waiting, you'll get there eventually
The question is, when you arrive, will it still be this century?

Chorus

Em G C
Ninety-nine's a better option if you have the time to plan
But take this direction and you're putting your life in your hands
Because you know when the earthquake hits, you're gonna get fucked
If you happen to be stuck driving on the viaduct

Chorus

Em G C
If you're like Sammy Hagar and can't drive fifty-five
And the thought of going sixty makes you break out in hives
You'll find yourself right at home on a floating bridge
When your passenger waits and asks you "have we moved a smidge?"

Chorus, End
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Subject:Stray thoughts
Time:01:55 am
Technology is making parts of pop culture anachronistic. For example: In the song "Build me up buttercup" by the Foundations, there is the line "I'll be home, I'll be beside the phone waiting for you." Really, there is no reason to be sitting by the phone in today's day and age. It might be more appropriate to suggest that the singer would be checking his phone every 20 seconds for a text message.

There needs to be a song about the Internet, or more specifically, about Wikipedia. (Upon further consideration, is Wikipedia really any more specific than the Internet itself?) The song needs to be titled "(disambiguation)".

If I had an amount of time to myself, I would consider posting an ad on Craigslist looking for people in Seattle who still might play Tecmo Super Bowl. It is perhaps the greatest football video game ever, and it is 8-bit.
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Subject:Beat the Streak Confusion
Time:06:22 pm
I'm planning on spending some time this offseason coming up with an algorithm that will make me more effective at selecting batters at MLB's Beat the Streak, so that I can take a shot at a $1.5M jackpot.

I break down my task into two parts, as you've probably read: The first task is to get up to bat and earn a Plate Appearance (PA). The other is to get a hit when you come up to bat (H), and ultimately to get a hit in a game (G).

In 2008, Ian Kinsler of the Texas Rangers led all of baseball in number of hits per game, recording 165 H in 121 G (1.364 H/G, 4.82 PA/G, 0.283 H/PA), but that doesn't tell the whole story. If we know H/PA, we automatically know not H/PA, because it is equal to 1 - H/PA.

If we take NotHits/PA to the power of PA/G, we'll know the probability of the batter NOT getting a hit in a game. For Kinsler, that's .717 to the 4.82 power, or .2012.

Of course, 1 - the answer we just got is equal to the probability of getting a hit in any particular game, or 0.7897.

In the same season, Boston's Dustin Pedroia collected 213 H in 726 PA over 157 G. He was second in baseball in H/G at 1.357, just 7 10,000ths lower than Kinsler. Not much, but still lower. However, following the same methods that I used to arrive at Kinsler's hit probability in a game, I come up with 0.7993 for Pedroia, which is actually 3 1,000ths greater than Kinsler.

I'm not entirely sure why this is possible, but here's the nearest reason I can come up with:

The units in the equation are different. It's like high school chemistry. In the first equation, I pretty simply multiplied H/PA by PA/G, canceling the PA from both sides and leaving just H/G. In the second equation, I'm taking H/PA and multiplying it by H/PA several times, so I end up with something like H-cubed over PA-cubed.

This is not a singular problem in the 2008 data; Albert Pujols does better than Jose Reyes, who checks in better at a .0002 probability advantage despite Reyes enjoying a .02 advantage in what is ostensibly H/G. There are others two, but I don't feel the need to enumerate them.

As of September 21, it's been happening this year too, although I've only found once in the top 16 batters by H/G.

Any math geniuses out there want to help me out?
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Subject:Peer Pressure Question of Importance:
Time:04:00 pm
Do I want to see KISS at the Key Arena in November?
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Subject:Emails
Time:02:57 pm
I've been getting a number of emails from people who I went to grad school with last fall, asking me to connect to them via a social networking site called "Naymz."

I'm sorry, but if your company name has an unnecessary "Z" in it, it sounds dumb and I'm probably not taking part.
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Subject:RE: An Article
Time:11:35 pm
Earlier today, Matt Alex posted an article on his facebook from the New York Times Magazine. The article (linked here) discusses middle schoolers who are coming to grips with their sexuality, some of the pressures that they face, and some of the tactics that they use to alleviate some of that pressure.

A couple of things strike me out of this article. First off, the Internet is still a very interesting phenomenon, and it surprises me that there aren't more studies about it. Oppressed groups have the ability to find people like them-- whether its because of an opinion or because of their identity-- and can share in their frustrations and expand their worldview. In terms of the article, it is now less psychologically damaging to a kid in middle school to come out than it was even five years ago, so long as s/he can use the Internet as a tool to connect with others. This is really cool, and ultimately it's going to be harder to be an oppressor in the age of the Internet, unless the oppressors can somehow manage the accessibility of the web or its content. While the former is certainly possible (think of the Internet blockers we saw in high school), the latter is, I think, unlikely (see also the use of Twitter after the Iran "Election").

Secondly, the article makes mention of many bisexual girls pretty much to the exclusion of bisexual boys. I'm not entirely sure what to make of this, because I feel that if gender and sexuality were wholly genetic traits, then I would expect we would see more bisexual males. If you buy the theory that our culture has much to do with our feelings towards our own sexuality and gender, then it might make sense if we take a few jumps.

Suppose that our culture sexualizes women almost to the exclusion of men. That is to say that women's roles in the media are frequently related to sex, whether by suggestion or the actual act, and men's roles are generally infrequently related to sex and attraction.

I would also like to suggest that we all-- female, male, and otherwise-- are subject to these messages in our media. Because of this, women are sexualized to girls and women every bit as much as it is to boys and men. The media we read and see wants us to be attracted to women, I think, regardless of our own sex. This may help produce more bisexual girls and women than boys and men.

This presents an interesting problem for the straight male. A straight male desires a woman, but if women are getting together, fewer women will be available to the straight male and we may begin seeing (unhappily) single straight males later into their lives. It makes me wonder if any particular kind of man will be the kind left single, and if so, what kind of man that will be. I get the sense that if men continue to disrespect women through either physical or emotional violence, those men who perpetrate those crimes will be less likely to procreate because the women they are with may turn to another woman or one of the other available men. However, it could just be that women will select against men who they think are slobs; whether that means by physical appearance or inability to hold down employment or otherwise handle their lives.

And then there's a third thought, which comes out of this second thought. I can't say with any conclusive proof, but it appears to me that bisexuality in women may also be correlated with polyamory. If many of our relationships start to have more than two parties, then culturally we are going to have to rethink the way we do relationships, and subsequently, we may again have to rethink what it means to have a marriage.

These are interesting times, people.
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