Busted in Indiana

In a semi remarkable turn of circumstances, the University at Buffalo failed to advance to nationals. Now I find this marginally hilarious, seeing how this was the very first year that 'A' team has placed in the top ten during invitationals, and they even placed first in the last two. Then at nationals they don't pull through? Amazing.

I was generally dissatisfied with my liquor store owner persona, but there was a reasonable amount of amusement in the reversed Nathenson criminal profile role. Mainly, just watching the other teams reaction when they found out, and getting crossed, because no body understood it. They kept looking for places to impeach me, and failed miserably. Our little 'C' team managed to pull a very good show, and it ended up being our best tournament all around. (That's supposed to be how UB rolls, I'm not quite sure what 'A' team was up to...)

They attempted to give us food, which ended up to be a disaster, surprisingly. I would have been more satisfied if they didn't try and give us food at all. Then I wouldn't have to fume over the plastic orange go they smeared all over a perfectly good mushroom sandwich that I couldn't have eaten. The whole bag lunch just made me eat so many potato chips (which I never eat, and now I know why) and apples that I nearly got sick. I certainly felt queasy the rest of the day.

Lessons learned Indiana: Salt, oil, soda, and acidy fruit do not sit well together; and karma exists.

The Honesty Box

Monday's Music of the Moment::: The Honesty Box

In an unusual turn of circumstances, I like the instrumental songs almost as much as the ones with lyrics for this band. My favorite has got to be Cloudburt Forever and I've been doing my homework to it for the last few hours. The lyric construction is simple enough to get caught in your head for hours, and http://www.pahardcore.com has quickly become one of my top five webpages, as I get to make playlists and hear songs for no money whatsoever. The only down side is they have about two songs for every band. Well, beggars can't be choosers...

Point of no return

You pushed to hard, I’m about to break
There’s only so much I can take
There was a time, I’d let it go
Because the highs outweighed the lows

But now it seems, those days are gone
Tell me where did we go wrong?
You will take, no blame at all
Right always comes before a fall

I can’t go on
There’s nothing left
I cannot take another step
You’re on your own
You’ve got to learn
That there’s a point
of no return

I heart Binghamton

Buffalo debate has always had some crazy times at Binghamton, and even though I was literally the only one from our team representing; it was still amazing. I got to judge for my first time ever, which proved very enjoyable. I hadn't even realized how much fun this could be-- and I got money for it! The best of both worlds. I even got to be on the panel for the final novice debate, which was quite intense. I also didn't realize Bard took their clothes off, which made that another first for me. Nobody yelled at me afterwards about any of my decisions, and I even got this crazy "judging award", so hopefully that's a good sign.

Better still, I had about four rounds off or so, and so have a good number of varsity debates flowed and ready to be looked at to make blocks. I have definitely been slacking on the debate, and focusing on the school part this week, but I figure I have some time over the weekend to muddle together some random cards. Everyone is running topicality is biopolitical. I tried finding stuff on it, but so far, I've hit a cement wall. I'm thinking I could just type up a bunch of analyticals about it anyways. As long as I convince Jeff, or my imaginary partner, to stick to one good one per round, I don't really see it being much of an issue.

The food situation was crazy there as well. The first day everything was vegan, and they even tossed in a dinner of pitas and falafel. There were also these chocolate bars with nuts that I ended up eating three of. Absolutely delicious.

Bush denies genocide in Sudan

It really shouldn't surprise me any more; but I can't help it.

As violence still displaces Daruris, US decides genocide no longer exist, Eric Reeves ; Feb 4, 2006
http://sudantribune.com/article.php3?id_article=13913


I literally had to read this article twice in order to fully comprehend. Bush is seriously trying to deny that a genocide is happening in Sudan? They already admitted one was happening.

I am however, happy the first article I found talking about it was by Eric Reeves, who definitely rocks and made this unbelievable statement sit a little better with me. He details how horrendous this denial is and has quality lines like:::

"No amount of expediency on the part of the Bush administration can diminish these realities, or their clear delineation by the language of the Genocide Convention."

Where will that leave Sudan now? Effectually nothing was being done in the status quo, when the US was recognizing that the situation was a genocide. How long is this really going to continue before substantial action is taken?

OneWordSolution

Monday's music of the moment:::

I've been hopelessly addicted to OneWordSolution as of late. Even though they are far more liberal then what I'm used to listening to (yea okay, this from the girl who can sing a good number of quality David Rovic songs verbatim), I still am finding it more amusing then I probably should. It has a fairly decent beat, although I think it would be ten times more effective if they would slow down on the lyrics. Either way, it definitely goes into the pile of CDs I would by if I had money.

Wasteland
In the distribution of the wealth there's no equality
With a fair share seeming to be a fantasy
Still everybody's looking for the diamond ring
While the fruits of out labor go to feed the king
Everybody's ready for a break in the rain
And everybody's tired from the weight of the chain
It only takes one spark to ignite the flame
For the voice of the people is the power of change.

Fish as... art?

For my Chinese class we were instructed that we had to visit the museum in the Center for the Arts and write about their China wall display. No problem, I was all over it.

I wandered down there Thursday afternoon and began transcribing random stuff into my notebook about each display to use for my paper latter on. Some of the displays were fairly cool, and I was pleasantly enjoying myself as I dully tried to deduce why I couldn't just be an art major and play with paint all day long.

There was a bed in the corner of the room, and eventually I moseyed over there to investigate. On top of the bed it had a clear mattress with an oxygen tank hooked up to it. Huddled at the top were about three dozen goldfish, all trying to get oxygen from the thin stream being poorly run through. What was even more disturbing, was the paragraph that was describing the exhibit to us uninspired students who can't see art through this medium. It talked all about how the artist had been trying desperately to "get it right" for years, as he forgot frivolous items like oxygen and food and other mundane things. So hundreds of fish died at the sake of his masterpiece.

This is the most disgusting disregard for life as I have ever seen. How does one elucidate to themselves that wasting fish is a legitimate detriment for the sake of expressing their creativity?? On the accompanying paragraph it concluded how daring this was, and such a bold statement. When I got home, I looked it up. This isn't some daring new form of unknown expression; it has been done, tried, expressed, and copied for over a decade. Another moron has the same exact wonderful imaginative thing you do. What creativity and ingenious does that give you?? None. You have the same thing that a person would have if they stole a Van Goug from a museum and brought it to a copier machine. What inspiration. If only we all could evolve to that level.

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2003/0606/local/stories/08local.htm

At least one got shut down. I would totally be on this, but the last day was friday. So at least it's all gone anyways.

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/STYLE/arts/02/15/goldfish.ap/

Gorillas for class

I'm in a mildly excited state because for one of my classes I get to watch gorillas all semester long. And while I am slightly against the whole caging wild animals in thing/zoo situation, I do feel like Buffalo zoo has taken lots of steps to try and make it a good place. Bah, that sentence still sounds very wrong. Cage is still bad and the only thing I can comfort myself in is that I won't be giving them any money, so at least I'm not financing them. Maybe by observing the zoo for so long and being able to see where and how the keepers interact with them, will make me realize that its not such a bad place. Yea, and maybe if I take a tour of a slaughter house I'll find that humane as well. Insert a heavy sigh here. I'm constantly being attacked with things that are bad, but I cannot change. There is no other option if I want to graduate, and am I really supporting the zoo if I'm not giving them anything? Does my mere presence there really symbolize something and make me a hypocrite??


Dancing Bears of India

The people gathered round, to see the bear perform his dance.
He didn't have a choice you see, he didn't stand a chance.
His muzzle had been pierced with a red hot iron bar.
His owner would make sure he didn't wander very far.

He was captured as a baby with just this thing in mind.
His mother she was slaughtered and her cub was left behind.
He was taken to the city in a cage with iron bars.
He was lonely and was frightened of all the trucks and cars.

They left him in a little cage, tied with a rope and chain.
Then, they made him dance all day out in the sun and rain
They tugged hard on the rope, that was threaded through his nose.
They poked him with a big thick stick, to dance up on his toes.

They pulled his canine teeth out, he couldn't eat his natural food.
They tried to feed him other things but it wasn't any good.
He got sick with malnutrition and was left to die in pain.
The people that would do these things must really be insane.

Copyright © 2003 by Maureen Flynn-Smith. All Rights Reserved May be used in unchanged form by avowed Animal Rightists if accompanied by this copyright message.


There are only four females there so I'm doing my paper on the difference between their interaction in the zoo verses the typical female/female relationship and interaction when there is a male present. I'm fairly certain this should keep me relatively entertained throughout the next couple of months. I wish I had a car for moments like these. The bus is really going to get on my nerves after awhile.

2006 China threat kon

So in my quest to find new relation cards, I find a threat kon one instead. A much more satisfying and exciting phenomenon.

http://www.asianewsnet.net/level3_template1.php?l3sec=8&news_id=51203

It's not the best card in the world, it just says that the way to turn China into a threat is to cast it as one. There is a cute line at the end where it states that China shouldn't be viewed as a threat but as a chance. Awww. I like it. It has really no depth to it though, but I'm super excited it is from 2006. It will take about a half of a second to read, so there really is no harm in throwing it in and smiling to myself as I read 2006.

I even made this little header for it, because I've been cutting a bunch of Sudan cards, that has these little snowflakes on it saying Buffalo. I'm such a dork.

Maybe this will give me the motivation to run it in round again. I didn't run it once the whole Texas Swing, so two tournaments in a row with no threat. Didn't think it was possible. I'm going to rush off to class then type up a few summaries for it...

Speeding and Raleigh in the Carolinas

Back in Buffalo at last. I never thought I would actually be happy to be home; but there it is. And in true Buffalo fashion it started snowing today. Can't get that down south.

NC ended up going surprisingly smoothly. All my worries about the 24 hour driving experience within 3 days were quite unfounded- I just read and slept the hole time. There was a scary, heart stopping minute where it seemed I was going to be in Jeff's van, but I made it out.

I camped out in the back, back seat so I got a full row to myself to jump and roll around in. I also only spent $5.40 the whole trip, which is something I think I should be commended on. It was basically all on drinks. Damn hydration-if it wasn't for that...

3 out of the 4 vans also managed to get speeding tickets. Now the real riot is that 2 of those three got it from the same police officer. He basically laughed at us the whole time. After he gave out the ticket he grins at Madelyn and goes, "Any more of y'all comming through? Got me one of these SUNY Buff-alo vans 10 minutes ago."

The trials were held in small classrooms, some of them without tables, and only one judge per room. That messed up the whole thing, making only 4 ballots and 2 chances at placing. I wasn't for it at all. We lost all of them by 2 or 3 and I know we would have grabbed at least one or two ballots had there been another judge in the room. A team ended up winning the whole thing, while B and C had a race for ... last place evidently. I did fairly decently for having to play not one, but 2 new parts.

The best part was the last night when our room decided to go the 45 minute drive to Raleigh. We went to this ultra snazzy jazz restaurant with a live band and cozy coaches and candles. I can't vouch for the food, as I wasn't about to make vegan anything on the fried flesh menu, but I have it on 5 accounts it was fantastic. The ice tea goes on record as the best ever as well.

Classes now seem really dull compared to gallivanting around in the south.

Texas = Spanos and Mexican

We actually did it; the UB Policy debate team managed to fly itself down to Texas, and back again with minimal difficulty. The flight down was rough, much delays and bad lazy airport workers making our connection from Chicago to Texas almost much longer then planned. Despite the mass amounts of tape and care that went into packing my 48.5 and 47 pound tubs, they tumbled into Fort Lauderdale four hours after Jeff and I did, with various amounts of cracks and weird bruises which probably effected their whole performance at the Texas Swing. Yesss, I'll blame our losses on the airports of the United States.

We were leeches to the grand and wonderful University of Rochester once again, and they put us up in some pretty swanky hotels that blow our previous accommodations out of the water. Anyone remember the 'Knight Motel' in Ohio??? Oh good shady times. We're lucky a stray bullet didn't hit us.

There was certainly no stray bullets zooming around these hotels, with beds I had to jump to get into, Starbucks coffee, two showerheads, and a phone next to the toilet. Whoa, they think of everything. And cable TV. I want it sooo bad. I got to watch what all the cool kids watch all last week. It's amazing what fun a TV can be when it had more then 1 and a half channels. I'm also very pro to this thing called a "hospitality suite", which is stocked with literally every liquid you could possibly desire, no questions asked.

I managed to fail totally at the whole taking pictures thing, and my camera that was given to me over break lays still in my bookbag unwrapped. It of course, continues the problem with film and gelatin, but as I am way to poor to buy a digital camera, and as of yet, each one has been given to me, I can't be totally evil, right?Or is it? Oh dear, I'm a goner. All I wanted was some southern memories. It doesn't even matter though, because I was way too distracted with cutting down cards, making blocks, debating, and TV to process that I had no pictures. So all my pictures I will have to, once again, leech off of Rochester. And Katie has them up already! Score! Why do I always have a backpack on? I think it might be connected to me....

The first tournament was in Denton, and went down without much troubles. We lost a few rough ones, but there was this magical time between Denton and Dallas that blocks were made and cards appeared. It was like having a redo. A redo where we won the same amount of rounds we did the tournament before without the blocks and extra cards. Honestly? Only we could pull that one off. Dallas, which was named "fear and loathing", ended up living up to it's name when pairings went crazy, out rounds didn't have tables to flow on, and judges vote on arguments in cross x... or rather, because of this alternate use situation, on stuff that went down during the other teams prep time...

Everyone who was negative had apparently lost all their folders, and ended up having to go with this community argument that must have been handed out to everyone at the tournament but us, called Spanos. I'm not really pro it at all, the only satisfaction I got was in Dallas when we finally beat it. It took us a tournament though. A very long tournament of trying to run some sort of threat kon/otherization/Orientalism combination of answers that made us forget to pound the case outweighs cards that we've memorized by now. We are suuuch failures. Everyone down there also had a weird affiliation to Mexican foods and at least one car went to one every night. I don't trust Texas' beans. There was this mushroom and spinach masterpiece though that is tied for first with a stir-fry place that had tofu and totally rocked.

It was also confirmed that nobody in Dallas reads. It took an amazing time to try and find a bookstore, and was only accomplished with very sketchy directions Jeff had badgered out from a poor gas station attendant that probably never saw him coming.

All and all, it was an amazing time, and although my ears still haven't popped from the plane and so I can't hear, I'm unbelievably ecstatic about the time down there and can't wait to take home the next tournament we manage to muddle over to. And I really can't wait to drive to North Carolina in 12 hours, a place where my plane landed 16 hours ago in for a lay-over. If I had money- I would so be in a hotel next to the airport in North Carolina already waiting for mock trial to drive all the way down. But unfortunately, I'm broke, and apparently going to have to be bottled up in a van in the very near future with two new parts I just found out about. Fan-tastic.

Dreams of Texas

UB Policy debate team has somehow managed to set itself up to go to the Texas swing tournament. Jeff and I will officially be representing the good ol' UB. Katie and I haggled/listened to stupid jokes/smiled and nodded our way through SA administrators and maneuvered ourselves two seats on an airplane bound for Dallas. (Its the top dot on the map:::I thought the map might help everybody out and really visualize it for y'all)

Unfortunately we need to miraculously come up with a binder with a random assortment of highly important activities that we have done throughout the semester. They actually froze our budget because we didn't provide them with some picture book of debate doings. This must be the epitome of insanity. It's not like anyone really is going to look at all the hundreds of binders odd clubs at UB have given them. Or they shouldn't. Some real prioritizing needs to be done if they are actually paying someone to do that.

This seriously is going to be a surreal step for us. Our debate team actually on a plane. That should certainly prove interesting. I can't wait to see how I'm going to check in the debate tubs at the airport. That's going to be ridiculous. I can't wait.

The plane leaves at 9:50 on January second and even has a bonus layover for an hour and a half in Chicago. This is very agreeable to me because I think Chicago's airport is strange and I like wandering around it. Maybe we can take crazy pictures of us there. Jeff might not be so pro, but I'm sure I could convince him. We will definitely need pictures though. Hey -- we could even put them in the f***ing SA binder for next semester.

I miss Gelspan

All the talk about hurricanes and global warming has made me significantly miss last year’s topic. Maybe I’ll find a way to run the ice age disad like army pulled on us just for old times. Or better yet, I wonder if we could just run last years affirmative, and just insist it was 2004/5. It's not like they are going to have any evidence saying otherwise...

Arctic Natives Seek Global Warming Ruling

I still am in a mild state of shock that US policy hasn’t acknowledging global warming yet. It’s ridiculous that we are one of the two countries that hasn’t signed the Kyoto Protocol, and not because of some half way legitimate reason, but because of the economy. I would even feel better if it was because they didn’t believe it was happening, or would have big impacts, or basically any other reason. But limiting emissions by 2012, over the course of six years, is not going to have that significant of an effect. With all the recent environmental activity and such you would think Bush would at least attempt to address the problem.

US/China relations

I don't know how you can spend weeks in a country trying to work on relations, and come out with them being worse. I thought for sure I would find great new cards for the relations DA saying that since Bush came back from China, relations are at an all time high.

http://starbulletin.com/2005/12/04/editorial/special.html

Apparently that is not the case. Is it 2008 yet because I'm getting really really sick of US politics as of late. Insert heavy sigh here.

"In fact, Sino-Japanese relations are at perhaps
their lowest level since the countries re-established formal diplomatic
relations in 1972. A key reason for this state of affairs is the Japanese
cabinet's strong support for Taiwan, a Japanese colony until the end of World
War II. Bush's trumpeting, while in Japan, Taiwan's democratic evolution and
thriving economy could hardly have gone over well with the Beijing leadership,
although he did reconfirm America's "one China" policy."

Well at least there is a little positive in this:

"Nevertheless, the two-year Japanese ban against
importing U.S. beef was not rescinded, despite Bush's efforts."

As if US wasn't slaughtering enouph, lets add other countries to the supply we have to meet.

The Prids

I stumbled upon a new band, The Prids, and then while checking them out online, found out that they are all vegan. Is there a better combination? Music and veganism. . Now I wish I had money to pick up their Love Zero CD. Why can’t everything be free? Like college…



Some of the songs are instrumental, and so I’ve just been studying in the library with it playing on the computer. I get distracted if there are lyrics. There are huge lines today in the library, and I can see a few of them glaring but music is essential to studying; everyone knows that.

Contact

Of love and all things cold
And do you come in convertible
With the contacts
With the tear ducts
And a longing to destruct
My mind and the rain complains
Offer up you mind to me

Ohio debate

So, I was all excited about going to John Carroll this weekend. I had a partner that didn’t hate me (score!!) and who would be marginally cooperative. I even did speed drills, which, I mean…. I don’t do. But they proved fairly productive, and now I think I will do them. I made this super e-spec block too, which took me two hours, but there you have it. I got to use it even in one round, which unfortunately, I think was the highlight.

Everything was going great until 12:30 the morning we are leaving when my partner decides to disclose that he’s still in NYC. THANKS YASIN.

But, whatever. I dealt with it. I was marginally terrified about going maverick in varsity, but you have to do, what you have to do. And Buffalo needs to represent.

I gained a Case West partner mid trip, which also ended up meaning we could go JV. You would think this would increase our chances of winning, but then again, funny things can happen. Like losing every round you debate in and only getting a lucky little BYE.

I wouldn’t even be as frustrated, if I knew went wrong in half of the debates. I went to get practice after hearing about Yasin. But we lost on things that weren’t even on my flow as arguments, which I still don’t understand how that is possible. I need to make a threat kon summary that just has threat kon does not equal threat kon, and read it regardless to whether they even answer the K. How you can win on an argument where all you say is that you aren’t making these things up, for 20 seconds, I will never understand.

I feel reasonably bad though because I think we could have really won the second to last round, I just spent to long on their four f***ing T violations. I knew they weren’t even going to go for them, and I knew I should somehow be making a summary where I addressed all the T’s on one flow, but I failed miserably. As it was I spent 5 minutes of prep, trying to put blocks to them and then make up some Boeing DA answers, which, by the way, is my new least favorite disad. My partner loved it, he’s a type of engineering major that is apparently applicable to the argument. It did not, however, produce any answers to this argument. Just an add on that we won, I guess, but the impact was less then what the neg had. .

Live and learn though right?? Who knows. All I know is I should really get back to studying for my politics of gender finale.

Not sure if I should feed my computer addiction

As if I needed another reason to go online, I decided to create a blog.