Blog of Josh Hall

it’s 5 am, and i am just going to bed. Got a lot to do today. clean the apartment, eye doctor’s, going to a Who – Tommy broadway thing with adam, and i gotta pack for yankanuck. leaving 6am saturday and going up to canada for a week. should be lots of fun. i am taking american psycho, disturbing the peace, hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, diary, davinci code, and the interpretation of dreams to read. might stop by the store and pick up charlie and the chocolate factory if i think about it. I’ve started all these books, just never finished them. most people go up to the island to fish, but i am not big into that, so i am just going to get away from technology for a bit and read and play my guitar and hang out with my sisters. I am so stoked. havent seen keren all summer since she has been in michigan. rock on!

you’d think if they have the time and means to make green ketchup, they could make orange juice that doesn’t suck before or after toothpaste.

Thinking about how parents and adults curse the name of video games because they are too violent. They said these games shouldn’t be created at all. I am curious to how these same people react to the invasion of iraq. Is it just a matter of having “justification” for violence? Is it different because they can’t see it? Is it different because it can be thought of as patriotic? Does that make any of the World War II games more acceptable? What do they think about the military releasing their own game, America’s Army? I think if they don’t allow kids to engage in virtual violence, that they wouldn’t let them participate in any real army violence, meaning not enlisting at all. I guess i can’t really say too much without getting some actual data, but it would be interesting to query some parents in the mall, first asking them if they think video games are too violent and need to be stopped, and then asking them if they support the soldiers killing people. You might even go as far as calling video games training for war, and by not letting your kid play, could make their chances for surviving in war less, if there were ever a draft. How slanted is that!?

I have always wanted to start my own business customizing things. It started off with thinking it would be cool to have a guitar amp that was like a sphere, with 4 speakers around it, and the jack on top, and people could play out in a crown with this amp, so everyone got the sound. It would be cool for parties, or street shows. Then i thought about how i like to customize things, and seeing things like computer cases and cars, i think it would be a great business. We’d have laser etchers, metal fabricators, painters, carpenters, artists, the whole works, and we could customize anything you wanted. the company name would be “Custom Eyes”

so we have this special occasion speech (SOS) tonight, and we had to submit an outline for it. There were no examples for it in the syllabus, no examples in the SOS section on the webpage, and no criteria listed anywhere for it. She was saying last week that it was a very easy one, and it’s only 3-4 minutes. So i basically submitted an outline along those lines of simplicity. She suggested things like wedding toasts, so i thought i would do a mock one for my sister. So i submitted something like:

I Serah and me as kids
II What I first thought of Mike
III How I think the two of them will get along in the future.

this is what i got back:

“What is this, a joke? Why would you even submit this? It clearly does not meet any of the assignment’s criteria. I hope you take the delivery of your speech much more seriously.”

Can you believe this?!?! I seriously want to report her. how the crap is that supposed to help me in any way? she gives me no constructive criticism, not telling me anything about where i went wrong, and it’s down right offensive.

So, i wrote back:

“Ouch. You’re being very harsh. There is no example for this outline anywhere. There is no outline section under speech 5. There is nothing about the requirement for the SOS outline in the syllabus. I have never done an outline for a SOS before. I can’t meet criteria if I don’t know what they are and I don’t understand them. I thought it was a simple assigment and did the best that I could think of given the simplicity of the speech. Perhaps that is where I err. So, I apologize if my efforts were offensive to you, and I feel quite insignificant for you thinking it was some sort of a joke. I guess the only joke here is me, as a student.”

the fact that her appearance and personality remind me of an X girl friend do not help either. I can’t stand her now.