5 Thoughts on a Thursday

1) The cat is skeptical of my dancing abilities.

2) Just because I haven't done it yet doesn't mean that you, member of the Oregon diaspora, can't get your absentee ballot in time to vote in the state's May 20 primary! Go to www.oregonvotes.org or www.deschutes.org to download an absentee ballot request form and then mail or fax it back to them! You can get registration forms at these websites also, but if you haven't registered yet, do that quick! The deadline is April 29!!!

By the way - Does anyone else get the feeling that Clinton is planning to drop out of the race right before the Oregon primary, just to spite us? "Count the votes of every state but one!" I hear her saying. "Let South Dakota and Puerto Rico and Guam have their say, but not Oregon! Those people are a bunch of loons, what their medicinal marijuana and doctor-assisted suicide and no sales tax or self-serve gasoline!"

3) Speaking of Oregon...

In general, I wouldn't trade the weather in Bend for the world. Compared to pretty much the rest of the world (or at least the parts of the world that I have visited or lived in) the winters and the summers in Bend are the best. They're dry and mild, which is great for someone like me who tends to sweat like a cold pint left in the sun whenever the weather gets close to seventy. But I feel like the inhabitants of Central Oregon miss out on April and October. Of course Bend doesn't have the kind of foliage that signifies that the season's are changing, but that's not all. There's also the smell that is everywhere here, that pungent smell of urgency and sex. It's really overstimulating in the best of ways.

But that might be because Bend doesn't die in the winter in the way that things do in Chicago or upstate New York. If anything, that's when all the deer and raccoons and rabid cougars come down from the mountains and rummage through your garbage at night. So that's fun, too.

4) I'm giving a 5 minute presentation on my Master's thesis, "Authority, Justification, and Intelligibility in Fear and Trembling" at the Works in Progress Workshop tomorrow at 3 pm in Classics 110. They are 22 of us presenting, and I am presenting third, at approximately 3:23 pm. So if you're in Hyde Park at the time, stop on by!

5) I went to the Yankees-White Sox game on Tuesday... sadly, the Sox lost 9-5. Apparently I am a jinx to all Chicagoland teams. To add insult to injury, I also left my wallet at the stadium. D'oh!

But what really struck me about this game was how different the atmosphere was there than at the Cubs game. At Wrigley Field, I barely noticed when the game started or ended. But at U.S. Cellular Field they made sure I paid attention. All of the White Sox players were introduced not once, but twice, and the second time it was to that music that Pirates of the Caribbean stole from Gladiator - you know the one, du-du-du-duuh du-du-du-duuh du-du-du-du-duddut. Also, they lit off fireworks whenever a White Sox batter hit a home run, even in junk time in the eighth inning when it was obvious they were going to lose. But on the plus side, the seats were comfier, the beer was cheaper, and I got to boo Jason Giambi. God, I hate that man.