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Mole

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Everything posted by Mole

  1. I’m a bit behind on this thread, but in short, an external threat is like space aliens or something, and existential threat is Jean-Paul Sartre pulling a gun on you. It’s a pretty simple distinction.
  2. USB stands for universal, so why is it so hard to find the right USB cord?
  3. I teach at a small NAIA college. Some realities that I had never considered before coming here: 1. There are certainly some good athletes and high performers, but a less gifted or relatively unskilled kid could get a scholarship as well. They might never play though. A kid who will be relatively headache-free and help the coach meet their recruiting goals will be appreciated. An ok high school player could certainly find a spot on our rosters. 2. Scholarships are discounts off the sticker price. The school knows how much on average they need to get per student and scholarship accordingly. There often isn’t some magical pool of cash they are drawing from — instead they are just balancing out average costs. Tuition at lots of private schools is so high in order to allow the schools to offer bigger scholarships. 3. Even at our level, the student athletes are busy. It is a lot for them to keep up with. 4. At least at my institution, the coaches are good about supporting academic goals. If a student-athlete isn’t getting it done in my class, their coach is usually the first person I reach out to. 5. At least at my institution, while they celebrate winning, there isn't the same pressure like the higher levels. Coaches surely have been let go, but I don’t think winning or losing has been a big part of that equation.
  4. Blaming the reporter; another example of that conservative personal responsibility they love to crow about. Obviously our country has a stupidity problem, but it goes hand in hand with the run away character problem.
  5. I get unsolicited text messages all the time but I usually just ignore them. How many times have I ghosted the Secretary of Defense trying to send me not war plans? It feels rude of me to just ignore the guy. At least in the iPhone App Store, I was disappointed to find no mention of this in the app reviews.
  6. Ubiquitous porn usage is probably frying some brains, but I’m inclined to immediately dismiss any article pointing to decreased alcohol use — and thereby abuse — as contributing to declining mental health. A lot has gotten worse for the kids, but decreased boozing isn’t making things worse. It’s asinine. Let’s take these depressed kids and throw alcohol into the mix and expect it to get better. Assuming the truth of the claim regarding mental health and political affiliation made by the Baptist deacon who lives out the Sermon on the Mount by belittling the least among us, it makes sense that religious people — with a healthier social structure as well as social pressure to not express mental health problems — would report better mental health outcomes. Maybe some good reasons, maybe some unhealthy reasons. And the peacocking about how virile and sex obsessed we are is satire, right? The pervs from those 80s movies weren’t heroes anymore than Andrew Tate is. Or maybe this is locker room talk? I love talking about how much sexy sex my sexy sex brain thinks about all day and if it weren’t for all of that sexy sex, I would have dropped out of school, but thanks to all of those sexy sex girls I was chasing — I’m so virile you see — I read Boethius (you see the ladies swoon when you tell them how Boethius mistranslated some Greek sources and then the panties start flying) and now am so rich and manly. I hope I’m doing it right because my manhood is at stake.
  7. Calling my shot here: since they like to use asinine interpretations of long-forgotten laws, we’ll see Greenland or parts of Canada claimed under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. The New York Times will soberly discuss the relative quantities of useable bird guano in the disputed territory, we’ll hear from some condescending, self-appointed MAGA fertilizer experts, and we’ll be left debating if it’s the stupidest thing or just the stupidest thing so far.
  8. Busy day for killing off what actually makes America great in the name of MAGA. Besides the unhinged “deweaponizing” of the justice department speech, we have a wild attack on academic freedom. Of course, as shocking as it is, it’s never surprising. AP Link
  9. Keep fall back in the middle of the night but move spring forward to 2 pm on a Friday. Make a big thing about it celebrating human ingenuity in the face of self-inflicted problems.
  10. I like how TFG presumably started as “the former guy” but most of us never read it in our head that way. It’s a nice organic term of contempt.
  11. Back to back posts.
  12. I’m a college professor on a four day per week class schedule and it’s a great system. In hindsight, it seems obvious to move from a MWF/TTh schedule to a MW/TTh schedule. As an experienced molder of young minds, I am willing to offer my services in developing a science course for the Patriot Eagle Rifle Academy in Hybrid Domestic Equine Genitalia as well as a series of music courses covering the work of Lee Greenwood.
  13. How am I supposed to understand a book where all the characters have the same name?
  14. I was thinking about how suddenly the news shifted from all sorts of world and national events to just one person. My informal survey is to check AP, Reuters, and BBC and count headlines. There’s been an overwhelming shift in focus, even though so much of the focus is on the profoundly asinine. Then I see the trolling here and consider how the campaign was largely a meme and trolling campaign, powered by rage and attention. Then we see the new presidential photo that looks just like Vigo the Carpathian. We used to live in Idiocracy, but we may have jumped over to Ghost Busters 2. There may be literal slime building up under DC. How long until the Ulysses S. Grant monument comes to life and starts trampling people? Can we organize a 24-day singing of Auld Lang Syne in front of the White House? My recommendation is to stay informed of actual events, advocate where you can, but to stop feeding the rage monster. It’s not just unhealthy for you, it’s his super power and provides his movement energy. If you claim Christ and are supporting this filth, prayerfully search the Bible to see what it says about the hot button issues of the day. Maybe start with Deut. 24 and 27; it’s pretty explicit and applicable. Or maybe just read the book of James and think about how we should interact.
  15. I’m not sure what I had in terms of clinical definitions go, but since self-harm has brought up as of late here, I’ll share my experience. Maybe it’ll resonate with some and maybe others will think that is not what I meant, at all. For several years — I’ve forgot how long — I had daily or multiple-times a-day bouts of intense, unwanted suicidal ideation. This happened about 10-15 years ago. The first time it happened, I freaked out and spoke to a love one about it. I was dismissed and was left with shame about these terrible thoughts. At that point, I shut up and lived with the thoughts. Whenever I was hurt or beat down or tired, those thoughts would come back. They started to feel like an awful friend, stopping by every day. In a lot of our culture, these are shameful thoughts — which is why I was dismissed when I tried to get help — and I eventually identified these thoughts with my own identity. Surely the thoughts I think each day are part of who I am, right? The shame and fear from these terrible thoughts, and my identity in them as BEING me, made them far worse. At times, they were the only part of me that could see. After some years of daily suffering like this, I came to see these terrifying thoughts as an attack from outside. Call it a spiritual attack or just an unwanted brain spasm, but the thoughts were NOT me. This was a big change in the way I was thinking. Outside of the hole, it seems obvious, but when I was in that pit, the only part of me I knew was those harmful thoughts. Once I realized that they were not part of my identity and I am something more than even my own thoughts, my perspective changed. I no longer feared the thoughts because they were something happening TO me, not who I was. I could calmly observe the thoughts and tell them to go away. Sometime they left, sometimes they didn’t, but they still weren’t me, which was far less distressing. Once I had an enemy that wasn’t me, I could see them as something hated or even pitiable. If I watch a movie about a bank robbery, I’m not a bank robber. If my brain plays a scene about self-harm, it’s no different. I did NOT embrace the thoughts — they were and are the enemy — but I wasn’t afraid anymore and I felt no shame for my external experiences that just happened to be happening inside my brain. There was hope for a way out of the pit. Once the enemy was identified, attacked, and no longer feared, the thoughts faded. I’ll occasionally feel the spiraling circles that preceded the first time and I’ll intervene by meditating on my actual identity and also telling those thoughts that they aren’t my friend and aren’t welcome. So far, it has succeeded in slowing down and eventually stopping the spiral. Every experience is different, but for me at least, treating mental health challenges like an Aggie-sympathizing neighbor from Nebraska who moved in next door and cut a hole in the fence is much better than allowing the challenges to define my self-conception. When those fence boards start ripping off, you have to deal with the problem, but you don’t start shouting “gig’em!” It’s not you; it’s an external problem happening on the inside. It’s hard to separate our thoughts from our identity. Maybe it’s not even always helpful, but for me in that time and ever since, it’s saved my life. Even when I couldn’t see it all, I was something far bigger than my own thoughts.
  16. As his first official act is self-appointed Longhorn Brand Ambassador, MackBrownTexasFootball leaks a hot QB rumor…
  17. The spreading phase lasted about 8 hours, followed by sleep, then the gathering phase, which is an all-hands situation. It takes a village to pack a bag. The gathering phased lasted about 12 hours although there was some early Festivus celebrations thrown in with some occasional airing of grievances. After the gathering phase, there’s the repacking phase, which overlaps quite intensely with the Airing of Grievances. Some was mutual and some was aimed at a particular in-law who no doubt earns the scorn. We didn’t quite leave at our agreed upon time, but that’s just Christmas I guess. I wish I were exaggerating what went down. It’s an annual tradition where all sanity breaks down. The worst 36 hours of every year.
  18. It’s Christmas travel time, which means that the kid and I packed last night while watching the game. Our stuff is staged and ready to go leaving time to tidy up so we come home to a clean house. My wife has created a massive list of unrelated busywork for her and me and is attempting to line the floor of the house with every article of clothing she owns. I look like I’ve joined the Ministry of Silly Walks trying to navigate all of the stuff she has strewn about. I guess my tidying made space for her to expand her territory.
  19. I’m pretty sure at Shaggy during the post-Mack coaching search, there were wishful jokes about replacing Mack with Belichick, and here we are. Life imitating whatever that was. Maybe he’ll hire Brady as his OC/QB coach.
  20. Texas has a 14 year winning streak over A&M.
  21. Welcome to Costco, I love you!
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