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Apr 19, 2006

All work and no play makes the Spike a dull blog. Sorry.

Most of my big nasty projects are due this week or the next. So after that maybe I will return in full force.
Nick ::: 1:34 PM ::: 2 comments

Apr 7, 2006

You know those birds that, in the morning, always end up imitating alarm clocks? Today I woke up to "Kid A," and one of them is outside my window singing the "we've got heads on sticks" line.
Nick ::: 7:45 AM ::: 4 comments

Mar 7, 2006

I am so sick of college.

It's my fault for getting jobs I actually like. I get to work and I feel like there's a purpose to everything I'm doing. I can see tangible results for my efforts, and the work itself is enjoyable mental exercise. I look forward to 40 hours a week elbow-deep in Quark and HTML, and I can't wait for my paltry 12 hours of classes to end.

It's not even that they're bad classes. In fact, they're all pretty fun -- except when my creative writing teacher goes to Costa Rica and the sub spends the entire 3-hour class bitching at us for our lack of preparation right after she left all our stories at home. Yeah, that one doesn't count.

But if not for the all-important scrap of paper they're saving up for next spring, I would ditch school in a moment and pursue some of the things I'm really passionate about. My career, music, some real writing projects -- once I get out of the university time-deprivation cycle, the opportunities are just going to stack up.

But alas, I am still a junior. There's more than a year of this to go. It's going to be really hard to drag myself back to classes after a summer of internship bliss, but somehow I have to do it.
Nick ::: 8:17 PM ::: 5 comments

Feb 25, 2006
My Mistake

I have been contacted by Clark Stallings, conservative columnist for the Red & Black, regarding the post I made on October 13, 2005.

In the interest of an accurate historical record (and because I sincerely believe that this blog has all the social and political import of a ham sandwich), I am going to leave the post intact. I am only adding a disclaimer and a link to today's post, which I hope will clear up any misunderstandings by explaining the event in detail using nothing but verifiable facts.

Stallings wrote a column October 11 which compared a quote by Hillary Clinton to quotes by Hitler, Mussolini, and Khrushchev. A reader letter published October 12 drew attention to the fact that Stallings was comparing quotes used by other conservative writers. Notably, these quotes were compared by Neal Boortz on his "favorite quotes" page and referenced on his July 29, 2003 "Nuze" column.

If there was some sort of personnel issue at the Red & Black, it is clear that Stallings was NOT fired as I earlier reported, because his stories continue to be published. Obviously, as I am not privy to such proceedings, any gossip I dish out about HR at the Red & Black is based entirely on hearsay and kept around only for entertainment value.

As far as I know, the writer's position is that he did come across the quotes on the Neal Boortz website. I draw your attention to the R&B retraction:

The Clark Stallings column, “Hillary Clinton snubs the person,” which appeared in Tuesday’s edition of The Red & Black, compared quotes by Adolf Hitler, Nikita Krushchev, Benito Mussolini and Ayn Rand to a quote by Hillary Clinton.

These quotes were used in a similar way in a column written in 2002 by Neal Boortz.

Stallings, who is not an employee of The Red & Black, said he did not get the idea for his work from the column. He said he remembered the quotes, then used Neal Boortz’s Web site, www.boortz.com, where the quotes also appear, as a reference.

Stallings did not attribute this Web site in his column.

After reviewing the incident, The Red & Black has suspended Stallings from making submissions.

Now for some speculation. Obviously, Stallings is making submissions again. This indicates that he convinced somebody that he didn't realize copying quotes off of another commentator's website without a citation constituted plagiarism.

I suppose I can't prove that Stallings is capable of figuring out that copying minus attribution equals BAD -- but in my opinion, it doesn't matter. If, as the retraction indicates, he knew that Boortz had used the quotes, he should have cited him, and his failure to do so still amounts to plagiarism. To quote the anonymous contributor who drew this situation to our attention in the first place, "Oooh...shutdown."

BUT...

I still made a false statement. According to the Red & Black, Stallings never worked for them in the first place, and therefore could not be fired. He was, in fact, suspended.

My mistake.
Nick ::: 3:51 PM ::: 0 comments

Feb 24, 2006
On Employment

Spent eight hours at my new web design job meeting people, eating free food, and messing around with computers. Awesome!

Then I got to do a front page with a massive CLASH OF THE DORKS centerpiece and an article on pot lollies, the day after the story on Kid Rock and Scott Stapp's orgy video. That covers sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll, and an epic battle of the nerds on the side.

Then I get home and I have to cut my guitar practice short because I have class the next day.

This is why I'm in such a hurry to graduate.
SCHOOL = HOMEWORK
JOB = ROCK
Nick ::: 1:30 PM ::: 0 comments

Feb 8, 2006

I have had to kind of gloss over some of my more extreme moments because I may be using the front page of this blog in a job application. So it would be helpful if everyone could comment and say what a nice upstanding fellow I am. Trustworthy with money, that sort of thing.
Nick ::: 5:09 AM ::: 6 comments

Feb 6, 2006

Last night of work starts at 4am tonight, so we'll see how being rested affects my life. I may become a morning person -- scary thought.

I've been playing around a bit with some music software and suddenly have a whole lot of respect for producers. Independently everything sounds great, but put it all together and it's muddy, or the synch is bad, or I can't hear some crucial part, or the singing is too loud here and too soft here -- what a nightmare. Mostly I just don't have time to do all of the stuff to the song that I want to. Maybe there's a class I can take.
Nick ::: 10:59 AM ::: 1 comments

Jan 31, 2006

I got a haircut today, and in the middle of the usual "I'm giving you a haircut" banter, I revealed that I was an Alpharetta kid, and that I graduated from Milton. The hairdresser's immediate reaction was predictably along the lines of "oh, wow, nobody in Athens with that pedigree," but she raised her tip by about 5% when she added that she wouldn't have guessed.

No offense to anyone from Alpharetta, of course. But still...

"You're nothing at all like most of the Alpharetta kids that come in here." Warm and fuzzies, ensue.
Nick ::: 5:50 PM ::: 0 comments

Jan 24, 2006
DIE EMO DIE!

No more rain this week, campfire party this weekend, birthday soon and payday sooner -- things are looking up.

Also, I've tendered my resignation at my night job. I'll miss it, but that's what I get for overextending myself.
Nick ::: 9:54 AM ::: 0 comments

Jan 23, 2006

I hate city rain.

Other rain is fine. Country rain has lots of outdoorsy spaces to run around in and tire itself out. Suburban rain is the same way, except suburbs don't have outdoors, they have "green space." The rain doesn't care, of course; so long as there's a place for the rain, and a place for the people, and these are well-defined and separate, the two get along famously. You can sit down in your nice, isolated house, listening to the water plonk contentedly onto your roof, and read or watch TV or learn Portugese or waste time some other way for hours. Even if you decide to go out, in the suburbs or the country you know damn well you're taking a car, thank you very much. Again, a well-defined, separate space.

Not so city rain. In cities, you can't just run around: there are people and buildings and satellite dishes scattered around everywhere. There's no ground, either: if you think about it, cities are just great big unbroken expanses of floor space. The rain sees walls, floors and people all around and gets understandably confused. It dithers around trying to figure out what to do, and gets underfoot.

Even if the rain manages to find some grass, it quickly realizes, oh, shit, I'm in a garden. Gardens have fences and sidewalks and such all around; they don't drain properly and it's hardly any better than landing on a sidewalk. The rain gets dirty, too, because if there's anything a city is good for, it's taking something pristine and sullying it up good.

This morning I had to go to class, carrying my laptop, a gigantic newsprint pad, and an umbrella. I had the valuables all tucked under whatever spare bits of myself I could find, mother-hen style, to keep them dry. For the most part, it was working, too. Then I saw some oncoming traffic in the street and thought, oh, shit, I'm standing next to the doomsday puddle.

I would explain doomsday puddles, but I assume that as children you all were familiar with at least one. We're talking the sort of puddles kids think they could drown in. Remember? Good.

The first two cars saw it coming and slowed down appreciably. I had by now sidled over to the far end of the sidewalk, but unfortunately I was approaching a bridge and the guardrail was already preventing me from going any further. The spray wet my boots but then fell away.

My luck was not to last.

The third car was one of those douchebags who drive black 80's sports cars. I apologize to any of you if you happen to be one of said douchebags, but the truth will out. Pop-up headlights are not cool. This guy, I swear, must have actually gunned the motor when he saw me, because the spray actually reached up under my umbrella and doused my face, not to mention everything I was carrying.

I showed up for my career center appointment looking like a drowned rat. This really set the tone for the rest of the day.

I like Athens. A lot. But I am not a city dweller.
Nick ::: 6:10 PM ::: 1 comments