Uncategorized

Totally Spun

72 Comments

Today’s post is by Wendell Wilkie High School’s perennial sophomore, Bubby Spamden.

Hi Mr. C.,

Boy am I lucky to still be a high school sophomore in 2012! We have SO MANY cool media resources.

Mr. Boozenporn assigned us to watch the Obama – Romney debate last night. We’re supposed to be able to stand up in class today, give an opinion on who did better, and defend it. When a bunch of people in the class protested that we don’t have the time or the attention span, Mr. B. said “too bad” and that we “had Nixon to thank.”

What does Cynthia Nixon have to do with this?

So the TV was turned on in my room, but I kinda got wrapped up playing Halo 3 with my buddy Doug, and before I new it, the credits were rolling and I had beaten Doug but I had also missed the whole debate!

No problem, I thought. They always have experts gassing on about stuff afterwards, so I’ll just watch that and figure out what happened. After about 40 minutes, this is what I had learned –

Obama and Romney both absolutely rocked the debate, and each of them were totally humiliated. After this, it’s hardly worth it to go to the trouble to vote because the contest has already been decided in favor of one of them, though I can’t remember which one it is.

Anyway, the game is over! Or else it has been changed – that much I know. Romney and Obama both spouted plenty of facts and tons of numbers that are absolutely correct and completely misleading, but we should not pay attention to that or to fact checkers because sometimes their research gets in the way of the telling made up stories about what’s going on.

Oh, and I’m pretty sure Obama got down on his knees and prayed to a photo of Lenin’s corpse before the show began, and Romney literally cooked and ate a peasant onstage! Gosh, I wish I’d seen that live!

Anyway, I’m glad I live in a country where every political thing that happens has this big crowd of people around it who will chew events over and spit them back out at you. It’s like being a baby bird – we’re always getting a steady supply of warm food, or in this case, opinions! Maybe someday we’ll be strong enough to have thoughts on my own, but for right now I’m grateful to the internet, social media, and TV. I now know everything I need to know about the first Obama – Romney debate!

My report in Mr. B’s class is going to be awesome!

Your pal,
Bubby

Ever forget to do an assignment?

72 thoughts on “Totally Spun”

  1. Good morning. I constantly have to write notes to myself to keep from forgetting to do things I should do. Mail is one of my big problems. I have to write a note to tell myself to take the mail to the post office and then sometimes I still have to make an extra trip. The mail I pick up sometimes gets left in the wrong place and I am asked “did we get any mail today”. I got a little “present” from the dog to pick up one morning when I forgot to put him in his kennel for the night.

    Like

    Reply

  2. Oy…been doing a lot of that lately. I am trying to keep up with two different job assignments right now and not doing well with either one (or at least that’s how it feels some days). Most of what I do does not have specific deadlines, but a few things do (moveable, inconsistent deadlines), and those are the things that have been missed once or twice of late. Easily fixed as soon as I noticed task A or B was not completed, but still a bit embarrassing for someone whose “brand” at work includes “detail oriented.” I have been adding a lot of reminders on my calendar to help keep up. I knew it was bad when this started happening at home, too. Hope none of those deadlines whooshing by are deadlines for today – I have meetings from 9am through to 2:30pm.

    Like

    Reply

  3. assignments? jeeze i forgot.
    i went to my kids conference yesterday and they have mea today so i had a house full of girls last night for a sleepover to celebrate the 4 day wekend i was watching the debate down in the basement and popped upstairs to see how they were doing and figured i could catch the debate up there and see what they thought. when i got there south park was on the tv they were sitting around. i asked them to turn on the debate so i could stay on it while i was grabbing a quick snack. they turned it on and as i left the room a minute later they turned it back. i am a bit concerned but i suspect it is a way of avoiding confrontation about the other persons wrong political views. they likely know i am the obama guy and they likely are not. friends yes political bloodbrothers no. it surprises and saddens me that 8th graders are not assigned to watch and comment on the debate and how they feel about it.
    i personally am disappointed that the debate went as it did. i like jim leher but he was a marshmallow last night and let them get away with too much going over the limit and steer the debate as they wanted to. i would have liked to see obama do a bit more in your face confrontation of the invisible man. there certainly were opportunities but there must have been an agenda to be kept and straying off to nail a misspoken factoid would have disrupted the flow but really. i am afraid obama may have been trying to be the cool calculating leader we need in times like these but i think calling the convenient truths romney pulled out of his magic bag of tricks was allowed to slide when it should have been called out. i hope they do their homework in time for the next one over at obama headquarters. it sure is important that we get it right.

    Like

    Reply

    1. tim, you expect 8th grade girls to watch a debate? Presidential or not, the majority of them are not going to do it. Heck, college students won’t pay attention to a movie in class, why should they watch it at home. Stream it to their electronic gadget maybe.
      Now if you could get Justin Bieber to moderate at the very least the ratings would improve in your 12-17 age bracket. And for the college students, maybe a pro athlete or girl in a bikini…..

      Like

      Reply

      1. i dont expect them to watch it. thats why the assignment is what i want from the teachers.
        i bet they would sit around doing math or reading about the history of the united states if it was left to them either. i dont like justin biebers take on the war between the states but a bikini showing geometry might have a little merit, ill have to ask my son. naked news attracts a certain element and makes those mundane reports more titillating.

        Like

        Reply

  4. If President Obama could interrupt the debate to wish his wife a happy anniverssary (and call her Sweetie), I think we can interrupt this blog to wish Dale a very Happy Birthday (calling him Sweetie is optional)

    Like

    Reply

    4. A very happy birthday to you, Dale. Good to hear you back on the air doing what you do so well, including asking people for money as you are doing today.

      Like

      Reply

  5. I was such a glory hound when it came to grades that I seldom forgot an assignment when I was in school. Over the last few years, though, since finishing “paralegal boot camp” (the accelerated program at the now-defunct Minnesota Paralegal Institute), I’ve had anxiety dreams in which I suddenly find out I have a huge final paper due that day (sometimes for classes I didn’t even know I was signed up for at a college I thought I was only visiting). I never had dreams like that when I actually was taking classes! Most impressive case of delayed reaction ever? My work is pretty detail-oriented, and I hatehatehate to make mistakes or get things wrong, so the impulse behind the dreams is quite clear, but it’s interesting how one’s brain tosses out things like that from the past instead of more immediate images.

    Like

    Reply

    1. Crow Girl, about 25 years after graduating from college, I began having dreams of missing final exams because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It never happened when I was going to school, but somehow the must have been a deep-seated fear of missing those tests. Why it never showed up until so much time had passed, I have no idea.

      Like

      Reply

    2. I still have dreams like that about graduate school. They are terrifying. I still wake up sometimes worrying that I am behind schedule sending the next draft of my dissertation to my adviser, and it takes me some minutes ( or what seems like minutes) to remind myself that I finished my dissertation and graduated.

      Like

      Reply

    3. I have that bad dream and have heard that it is a very common dream. I think that It has to do with having an education system that makes us jump through hoops that do not really add to our education.

      Like

      Reply

    5. I have read somewhere that sleep is the time the brain takes to make decisions about what events from the past day should be stored in long term memory, and what old memories can be discarded to make room for the new ones. Those college memories come from a time when you had to make a lot of choices that have had repercussions ever since, and the possibility that you might have to make similar choices again makes it inadvisable, on some instinctive level, to consign them to the dust bin, however old they are. So they keep percolating around in your sleep and combining with new anxieties in this not-very-useful manner.

      That’s my theory, anyway.

      Like

      Reply

    6. Crow Girl, I rarely have nightmares. When I do, they usually take the form of my discovering that I need to go back to college to finish another German class. Or that I will be obliged to take a test in German for which I have not prepared.

      Like

      Reply

  7. I never have been the type to forget assignments. I sometimes wish I were. As Anna said, detail-oriented is part of my “brand.” I prioritize assignments at work, constantly ranking which task must be completed first. I used to obsess over homework in high school and projects or papers in college. I’m not comfortable until all the tasks are completed, and its a rare day when all the tasks are completed. This is not necessarily always a good trait because it makes it difficult to relax.

    I started watching the debate last night but switched it off. I was getting annoyed by 8:30 and couldn’t see the point in it. Like Bubby said, there will be people gassing on about it for the next two weeks and I’m pretty sure I’ll get the gist of it by the end of the day today. Call me apathetic. I just don’t care.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I quit watching at about 8:30, too, Krista. I got tired of “My opponent says…” and the opponent saying “I didn’t say that…”

      Like

      Reply

    2. I watched the version that Democracy Now broadcasted with candidates from the Green Party and another group getting a chance to answer the question inbetween the answers by Mit and Obama by delaying the next question for Mit and Obama to give time for the other two. I fell asleep. I don’t fall asleep when Democracy Now has it’s regular program where there are no boring people like Mitt and Obama speaking who are just pretending to give real answers to important questions.

      Like

      Reply

        1. The media never reward interesting, intelligent moments from these debates. They endlessly run snippets that contain gaffes and personal attacks. The debaters all know, as Linda suggests, that they will pay a terrible price for making a mistake and virtually no price for being safe and boring.

          Like

      2. Obama just stood there like a blow-up punching doll, allowing the Fraud to repeatedly punch him with hardly any resistance. ThinkProgress clocked 27 lies in just 34 minutes coming from Romney. He was simply the finest used-car salesman I’ve ever witnessed last night, but something was terribly wrong with our president. I saw it in Michelle’s face even before the event began. Perhaps something personal or physical – I don’t know – but something was really wrong last night. I take this stuff too much to heart, that’s for sure.

        Like

        Reply

      3. Where did you see that, Jim? That must be what Husband heard about yesterday. I did hear some of those comments on Democracy Now this morning…

        Like

        Reply

  8. Downton Abbey Notes If there is no objection, I’d like to offer some short notes about Downton Abbey, the popular UK and PBS miniseries. Two seasons have aired. The third season is currently airing in the UK and is set to start in the US on January 6. I’ll keep these notes short, and I’ll try to make them interesting to baboons who have no special interest in this series. It can be worthwhile to peer into the inner workings of a dramatic series, even if the fruits of that at first seem like trivia. If these notes are an irritating distraction, just tell me and I’ll not run more.

    Downton Abbey Note 1: It is confusing to buy DVD disks for Season 1 and 2, for the series exists in two versions. There is the “original UK” version and the “PBS” version. For various reasons, the PBS version of this show is radically edited to shorten it.. How radical? Eight hours of original film are cut down to six hours. There are several explanations for this, including the conventions of the PBS packaging of Masterpiece material plus a presumed American intolerance for slow, complex plots. Anyone who enjoyed the PBS version is likely to get more enjoyment from the richer, more nuanced UK version.

    This editing has become controversial. There is no indication yet of whether Season 3 will air in America this coming year with similarly choppy, harsh editing.

    Like

    Reply

    2. My first reaction was that I was worried about spoilers and then I realized that I’m all caught up so you can’t spoil it for me. So I’m with Edith – interested.

      It would be interesting to see what the missing 8 hours (!!) contained.

      Actually, a friend gave some extra money to TPT during a pledge drive so that she and a friend (moi) can go to a special advance screening at TPT of the first episode of the next season. So, if I were nasty, I could spoil it for you.

      Like

      Reply

    3. Thanks, Edith and Lisa. I’d never post a spoiler, believe me. I’ve been giving the series a lot of thought, I find it intriguing now how much there is to say about something this unique and complex, and I hope others can come to see that, too. This will not be adoring fan notes, but observations on something that is worth contemplating in some depth. As just one indication of this, I have a lot to say about Isis, the dog. Let’s see if we can have fun with this.

      Like

      Reply

    4. leave it to beaver had the one where beaver told his dad uncle billy just told stories that tried to impress everyone because he is like the kids at school who tried to make people like them. ward ahd never thought of that. another case of the kids teaching the parents what life is all about. i love leave it to beaver

      Like

      Reply

  9. To answer Dale’s question: yes, I have forgotten to do an assignment. Probably more than one, but the most memorable was an “assignment” a therapist gave me. The result was rather disastrous – the therapist was very displeased, had some words to say, which I thought were totally uncalled for (as well as just plain mean) and I walked out, never to return.

    Like

    Reply

    2. Therapists need to deal with such situations with kindness, understanding, and calm exploration. i am sorry it worked out that way for you.

      Like

      Reply

      1. I had a good reason I didn’t do the assignment and she didn’t bother to find out what was up. Also, I was excited about writing out my feelings – and she shot that down pretty brutally. I’ve not been able to shake that off and write since.

        Like

        Reply

  11. I vaguely remember giving some song and dance to a college professor about why I needed an extension for my project… but mostly I am in the camp that is detail oriented and usually gets my stuff done on time. That said… if you don’t see me write it down in my little calendar book, don’t assume anything.

    Like

    Reply

  13. I usually remember my paperwork “assignments” at work, but I am not the best at remembering to type client appointments in my electronic scheduler. We all make our own appointments at work, and I have a bad habit of double booking myself, or else I have to guess who might be coming in next. Last night I had to stay at work an extra hour because I didn’t enter an appointment in the scheduler and then couldn’t remember if it was this week or next week. It must be next week since the client didn’t show and she always shows up.

    OT One of my daughter’s classmates ran away from home yesterday. Her description and picture were in the local and Bismarck papers. Daughter said she would never run away from home because she wouldn’t want her weight to be mentioned in all the papers. She said she knew we would put all sorts of embarrassing identifying information in the paper I said I hoped there were more reasons than that for staying home, but I guess if that reason works, then great.

    Like

    Reply

    2. i think you ought to post the article on the kitchen wall to let her know she had better never screw up. next year t could be mailed to the college paper where she wil attend if she gets a b or a c

      Like

      Reply

  15. My TV and Internet connection is a mess. TV for months, now today the Internet, too. Hickory Tech admitted today on their 23rd visit that they cannot fix it, since they do not even know why it is doing it. So I am going to have to deal with having no connection or live with this, that is paying a lot of money for very poor service. At no point have they offered to refund money. Switching providers means a big price or signing a two-year contract and other dimensions I am not going to explain. I am losing the argument with Sandy to just drop it all, so we will see. Any way, so if this hit or miss connection keeps up, expect me not in discussions.
    My real point of this message, if it makes it through, is to say my son and his wife were eating out in an old-fashioned dinner in tonight Palo Alto and Mark Zuckerberg and his wife ended up at the table next to them.

    Like

    Reply

    1. i would ask that they give back your money and go tot the other guys. if they refuse small calims court is real simple and you wil get the award you want or certainly be let out of your 2 year commitment at the very least but i would assume that id they admit they cant fix it they woyuld be aked to reimbuse you. i have a free lawyer if youd like to discuss it with him . he could tell you more than you want to know about how it all works. he is a friend who likes the world to work properly.

      Like

      Reply

      1. I am long out of a two-year commitment. I do not want to sign ANY two-year commitment for a reason I think is too obvious to tell. The other guy would have a different set of channel numbers, which is a problem related to why I do not want sign a two-year commitment. The problems that would arouse I am not going to face.

        Like

        Reply

      1. I was mentioning the $ issue only in passing. I am talking to them ow about it. I was really explaining my problem which relates to my presence or lack thereof on the ?Trail. And my son’s brush with Geek fame before he leaves Geek Valley next week.

        Like

        Reply

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.