Amazing how empty my life is without the Internet being easily accessible. I have to take notes on my cell phone of all the things I need to look up online, and then sit at this coffee shop, Sureshot, and do my business. It’ll only be a few more days until I’m connected again, but it’s pretty difficult. If only they sent me my iPhone sooner…
I’m trying to find friends. So far I haven’t done much with my roommates in terms of parties or other gatherings. Yesterday I headed down to GameWorks, just to see what sort of BEMANI they had there (best deal: pop’n music FEVER!)… I’m going again tomorrow because there’s a $10 flat deal for the whole night, and there’s bound to be a lot of people there.
I’m seeing if my department has some sort of orientation, because I obviously hope I can make friends with other computational linguists, or whatever. Besides that, all I can think of is just walking up and down the “Ave,” or University Way, and seeing what sort of stuff is going on. I wonder if there are any obvious social situations I’m forgetting about… minus intentionally forgetting about all the beer-bashes on Greek way.
In my free time (which is all the time), I’m plowing through Paper Mario, which is great – and Odin Sphere is in the mail. I might try composing some music, too, but I’m a little wary about doing anything too creative – because chances are I’ll need the Internet for some reference or something. Argh.
edit oh yeah, Apple had their event today. Good move with the splitting of Classic and Touch. Storage vs. Wi-Fi. The iPod touch looks confusingly like an iPhone, though…
also holy shit!! iPhone 8GB at $400?? Means I’m getting it in a few days, prob!
There’s a reason you’re The Internet’s Jeffrey ATW.
i knew it! i knew you were one of those internet dependent kids when i first met you on the internet
oh i was so right it’s a good thing i decided not to be your friend because of it
and hey i live in israel, why can’t i get a freaking free iphone instead of all of those stupid boxers?
iPhone… exciting but not for me I think… especially since I keep losing my $100 phones… ;p
glad to hear you are still alive even if you don’t have the internets to keep you going… hope you are having fun and good luck with the friend-making thing. I am sure you will do fine!
That Gameworks is awesome. It has Guitar Freaks/Drum Mania.
I’m one of the many iPhone owners that are pissed about the price drop. I’m probably gonna get the $100 gift card for AppleCare for the phone.
Yeah, I read about that just now. Them’s the breaks for new tech users! The $100 credit is quite a treat, though.
BTW, typing this on my new 4GB iPhone. Woop
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070906/us_nm/israel_support_dc_1
Opinions? Just wondering because you’ve actually gone, and so perhaps you can personally provide views from both sides of the tale.
Interesting study. It’s pretty true, but I think it’s natural. Israel never really held too much significance for me personally, but then again I was never very religious.
Something sort of scary that I heard from one of our trip leaders was “Apathy has made the Jewish people’s numbers diminish more than Hitler.” Well I’m paraphrasing… the way he said it was even more accusative. I think it’s great that Jews have a home in America as well as Israel. I don’t think Jews have to have some sort of obligation toward Israel. Even most Israelis treat the place as just the country they were born in, and not much more. In addition, a lot of people who believe Israel had no real right to be founded believe America was good enough of a place for those displaced by the Holocaust to move to. It’s a short-sighted view in a lot of ways, but then again, nowadays America’s a pretty all right place for Jews.
Most of this was just stream-of-consciousness because I wrote it on my iPhone and that shit is hard to edit.
Ah, and bear in mind I am full of alcohol at this moment so I am trying to weight my natural ionstinct to be OVERLY GUSHING about Jewish peoples, but you know the way alcohol works I may then turn around and come off overly critical so thats my warning.
I wonder if in some small way Jewish people’s apathy towards Israel is a side-effect of globalism? Like if you think about globalism and the cultures represented, ok you have your average wasp culture, hip hop culture, asian culture by way of japan, and only japan, and thats like it (Unless you’re outside of the US where by way of soccer south american culture has a bit of a presence). Jewish culture is always fairly neutral. Like the opposite of black culture (i’m black) where anyone isn’t representing black culture and issues exclusively in their work is turning their backs on their community the almost opposite seems prevalent in a lot of Jewish artists. Compare Jewish artists who came to prominence in the 60s and 70s (I include Fran Drescher in this by virtue of her appearance in Spinal Tap) compared to today. Woody Allen to Sacha Baron Cohen. I mean hell Woody Allen seems like a nazi compared to the generation before him even, like Jackie Mason and the other comedians who did that whole Catskills comedy circuit.
Not that I know how I feel about israel or anything (it being an extremely complex issue)
Like I said my alcoholic intake is my excuse if this doesn’t sound coherrent, sorry in advance.
Oh and apathy has destroyed everything everywhere these days. 2000-2009 will be known as a lame brain decade of apathetic douchebags. we dropped the ball bigger than the dudes in the 70s.
Globalism, indeed. Beats nationalism any day of the week. Like I said, I see nothing wrong with apathy when it comes to patriotism.
What do you think Jewish people in the US should be doing differently about Israel? Petitioning the Government to give them more weapons?