04.19.02 Jay is promoting my ad hoc contest. Grant total of entries: 0. Perhaps this is proof positive of my appeal in the electronic realm. However, since Jay's endorsement of my self-loathing contest, I have received three hits from his website. All three are Mac users, too.

I know what you're thinking: don't you have anything better to do than to analyze the data received by your tracker three times a week? Sadly, no. I guess I *could* be working on my German work, but what fun is there in that? Besides, I need something to do which requires little thought while sucking out of my oversized coffee cup in a vain attempt to wake up.

Destroy capitalism.

There are three candidates coming in to interview for the new ethics position. Two have come so far, a third is coming next week. Ethicists (in case you don't already know) are generally either the most interesting or the most boring people one can ever meet. If you don't believe me, read anything my Christine Korsgaard.

I'll write more later.

04.15.02: Today is tax day. It is the one year anniversary of Joey Ramone's death. Today in 1955 Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald's in Des Plaines, Illinois. On April 15, 1912 the Titanic sank off the coast of Newfoundland on its maiden voyage after it struck an iceberg. It is the birthday of inventor and painter Leonardo da Vinci, of co-star of Airplane Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, of 4 Non Blondes frontwoman Linda Perry and of 80's pop sensation and fire of my loins Samantha Fox.

Today I spent most of the day writing my presentation on why Habermas never read any Heidegger past Sein und Zeit. Well, perhaps he read it, but he didn't pay attention to it. He must have been kinda distracted when he went through Nietzsche also, I think.

Saturday I went to the "Democracy Rising" tour, starring such lights as Ralph Nader, Michael Moore and Jello Biafra. Over 6,000 people showed up to it; perhaps it can be better captured by stating that it was a radical carnival. Booths set up on animal rights, veganism, anarchism, atheism, anti-oil, anti-corporate coffee, and many other noteworthy causes. Enjoyable, yes. Ironically, the Democratic Party held a similar thing about an hour away and they could only seem to get about 2500 people to attend. Welcome to our fucking oligarchy: where it's not who you are, it's how much you have in your checking account.

Friday night I went to see Hatebreed. Great fucking show. Ended up a bit injured, my mouth is still bleeding on the inside. Well worth the pain though. I haven't been to a hardcore show since I left New York. Surprised? In the cultural mecca known as Florida? Who'da thunk it?

I need to catch up on a shitload of German work to be able to pass. After I'm done pretending to work (office hours: nobody ever shows anyway) I'm heading home to take a well-deserved nap. Then I've got to crank out two more chapters of German for class tomorrow at 9-fucking-30 in the morning. Whoever's idea that was makes Marquis de Sade look like Mr. Rogers.

Get this: I was recently elected (yes, elected) as a senator for the Graduate Assistant Union here at good ol' USF. Somebody in the administration is going to regret that: those who know me know how outspoken I am, those who don't know me will soon find that out.

I updated the features page with some new goodies. Check them out if you have nothing else to do, or if you're trying not to do the things you still have to do.

Fun facts: NY Jay gets on average almost four times the traffic that my web site gets. However, I amount to 57.14% of all his referrer traffic; his link to my site constitutes 1.38% of my referrer traffic. 12 of his last 20 visitors who followed links to get to his site were coming from mine.

Conclusions:

1. People are following any link they can just to get off my site
2. Jay needs some meta tags to get picked up by search engines
3. My friends love him; his friends hate me
4. None of the above

Contest: Choose one of the options above. Email me at faith@freeshell.org with your answer. You may win a prize! No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited by law. Cash value of my opinion 1/100 of a cent. Employees of Fuck the World, Inc. and its subsidiaries are ineligible.

I'm out.

04.11.02:

* All figures are to from 12:01 PM Sunday 04.08.01 until 9:30 PM Thursday 04.11.01