Why am I awake, you ask?

BECAUSE I HAVE TO DROP MY FUCKING SISTERS OFF AT SCHOOL, YOU ASSHOLE!

So tired. Will probably crash into random oncoming traffic en route. Bah, bah, bah.

Oh, and yesterday or the day before--they're all so nicely blended at this moment--I read this article in one of the copies of The New Yorker that Eric gave me, which referenced the Jim Lehrer Newshour (or whatever its actual name is) one of the few times I was actually watching it. It was madness. You see, that day, they were discussing this new law that was passed by South Dakota's legislature completely banning abortions (except in instances when the mother's life was in imminent danger). They had on one of the big fish responsible for the bill, who was trying to elucidate where an exception would come in, or something, and he described this Christian girl who wanted to save her virginity, prayed a lot, but was raped, blah blah blah. It was the most stupid thing ever.

But The New Yorker like had the exact same quote! It was so crazy! I was like, "Holy shit, I wish Dan (my roommate) were here so we could laugh at him!"

And now I must go! Hasta la byebye!

That dastardly desire to do nothing has once again taken hold of my brain stem with two hands and eagerly bitten at the pulp right in front of its teeth. Like a cartoon bite.

Its infection sweeps into every major function, leaving me only with my auxiliary blogging region to guide my sleeping mind to do something. It's either that or rely on the TalkTalkTalk Army, and that's unacceptable.

According to iTunes, I spent the last 42.9 minutes listening to Dark Side of the Moon while playing the pinball game that comes with my computer. I actually did really well, picking up two new high scores. I also beat my three-day-old best time in Minesweeper yesterday, clocking in at 105 seconds on expert. I tried to improve my not-so-good beginner and intermediate times too, but that feels so much like work that I couldn't bear to do it.

Wondering why this entry sounds so bleeding dull? That's because my day was extremely dull.

The most productive thing I've done is the previous post, while I have like 30 work-hours worth of homework to do by Monday. And the fucking essays. Oh well, maybe I'll do some homework now; at least it will be a change of pace.

Sorry to put you through this--even I didn't enjoy it. So why am I posting it, you ask? Because I would feel so awful if I spent five minutes doing something not-completely-unproductive and then had nothing to show for it. Bah.

Hasta la byebye.

Right now I'm feeling tired and cranky. Mostly cranky. Which is a good thing, really; I have lots of work to do and can't stand for being tired right now. But I figured I'd pay everyone a visit. Might help relieve some of the ol' crankiness.

So yesterday I went ahead and filled out this survey left on the counter by my mom for about two weeks. It was sent from the Democratic National Committee, and they were all, "PLEASE RESPOND WITHIN 72 HOURS!" And I figured it wouldn't be nice to keep the poor Democrats waiting, so I gave my folks twenty-four hour notice two days ago that I would fill it out if they didn't. And they didn't. So I did.

And this is a very good thing, because my parents subscribe just a tad too much to the party schtick and are just a tad too populist for me to happily let them fill the thing out. And while the survey could have been worse, it could have also been considerably better. Every question had three (or, much worse, two) answer choices. This really irked me when I came to the minimum wage question, which was asking if we supported increases. The two answers choices were, "Yes, they should be paid more, blah, blah," or "No, increasing the minimum wage discourages employers from hiring." But there was no, "Yes, in order to keep up with the rising cost of living and to pass on the benefits of increased productivity the minimum wage should be marginally and gradually increased, but not by the fucking 40% margin over three years that you apparently support, you retarded twats." And so I had to pick the no option, since it corresponded more to my views--especially when I considered the moronic populism plauging Congress on the issue.

By the way, I just like to say how extremely motherfucking happy I am that that ridiuclous bit of legislation did not get past the Senate. I swear, that kind of thing is almost as bad as the PATRIOT Act, though thankfully not nearly as popular. I really don't understand what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of fiscal responsibility, but now they're the party of mindlessly cutting taxes. I mean, how dare you try to get rid of the estate tax, you imbeciles? How dare you?

(The bill that was rejected by the Senate does not actually push to repeal the estate tax, but the difference in revenues for the US Treasury between the proposed neutering of the tax and a repeal are rather small, so whether or not any further action would have been taken to actually remove the estate tax completely would be mostly irrelevant; either way it would cost us the better part of $1 trillion between 2012 and 2021. Why then? Well, Bush's tax cuts have already set provisions to progressively reduce the estate tax's tax base and rate until it is temporarily eliminated in 2010, only to be reborn at old rates in 2011.)

You know, if taxes were always about the principle of the matter, then we would probably charge a nice flat rate, and rich people and businesses would be happy. But in the real world, the principle of the matter takes a back seat to pragmatism. The marginal utility of money diminishes as you get more and more money. To make that clear for those of you who aren't familiar with marginal utility, imagine having absolutely no money, and you're living out on the street. Then imagine if I gave you $1000. You'd be ecstatic, yes? You'd finally be able to eat and sleep in a bed (though it might be roach-infested). Then say I gave you an additional $1000. You'd be able to eat even more, and sleep in a nicer bed! Then another $1000, and you might go crazy and get a TV. But every $1000 you get after the first one means less to you than the one before; you will never be as happy to receive $1000 as you were when you had absolutely nothing. This is especially true if you have say... $1,000,000 and I give you another $1000. Do you care? Not that much. And that's what the marginal utility of money (which refers to how much utility--or happiness, or whatever--you get from getting one more dollar, given that you already have x amount of dollars) is all about. Isn't it fun when you come to read a blog and you find a lecture? Well I'm having fun. So nyah.

So anyway, the estate tax, if it were to affect the same people as it did in 2000 (which it will in 2011 if no one moves to repeal it), would affect dead couples with over $1,350,000 to bequeath. Now, who needs the money collected from the tax? The U.S. government or the rich couple's kids? I'd say the U.S. government. No, it's not fun to have your inheritance taxed, but the Treasury must get its money from somewhere, and you're really not losing much utility, whereas if we were to spread the burden over middle- or working-class families, we'd be destroying much more utility. There is, of course, a fine line that we must walk; rich people do, after all, contribute a great deal to the economy when they save their money or invest in companies, and getting rid of rich people alltogether (as, say, Huey Long would have liked to do) would be a dreadful mistake. But even if all that money that was being taxed was going to head straight for the bank, we can't use figures of GDP to allow us to further increase inequality and the misery that it brings; taxes and economics don't exist to permit the unregulated growth of money, after all, they're here to (among other things) try to distribute things properly so that everyone is better off.

Yay for economics-related rambling! ^.^

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I must go and finish my UT essays. And my homework. Neither of which is fun. Le sigh.

Hasta la byebye!

Currently in class. I just wanted to share something really nifty.

http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=7253202

The sub- (or super-?) title of this article is fucking awesome.

And yes. I am reading articles at The Economist's website during class. I realized soon after I came that I couldn't possibly understand anything the professor would say today since we kind of started a new chapter yesterday. When I wasn't here. So I'm reading.

And I'll get to work my ass off this weekend! Squee!

That's all. Hasta la byebye! ^.^

Last night, as I'd been sort of relating to Danielle, my mom started freaking out. I think it was like 10:00 or 10:30 or something. I can't even remember what she actually said, but it was surely something along the lines of, "Oh. My. God. There's a cockroach!" And she then proceeded to try to explain to my sisters, who were down there with her, where the bloody thing actually was.

Being the hero that I am, I grabbed a napkin left over from when I'd consumed vast quantities of Jack in the Box food and headed downstairs, where my mom was standing in this extremely tense and awkward pose--you know the one, where she's holding her wrists to her collar bones and her fists are balled in fear and apprehension. She mentioned something about how glad she was I there, and explained where the cockroach was several times while I was trying very hard to stare down my foe and not laugh.

You have to understand, my female relatives--the older of my younger sisters in particular, but my mother as well--are so extremely fun to laugh at. They just keep doing things. I can't even be bothered to explain it further since I won't be able to really convey any sort of understanding besides, "Oh yeah. So apparently they... do funny things." So I'll save my wrists. Anyway, what was simply lovely was that my mom would, in intervals of roughly four seconds, say things like, "I swear, if you let that thing get away, I'm going to kill you." And this would make me laugh, naturally. Every time the thing twitched, turned, moved, she'd freak out and start castigating me for not going out and getting the thing.

But I was patient, and vastly the intellectual superior of my adversary. Soon enough, the poor fool decide to start running (towards me, of course; it was more or less cornered so it didn't have many directions to choose from, and roaches don't turn particularly well when skittering). I leapt down and caught it. I was once more annoited hero.

And then, as any good brother or son would do, I proceeded to threaten my sisters and mother with the napkin holding the roach carcass. Absolute hilarity. I tell you, I got a great deal of sweet laughter from that whole adventure, enough so that I gave myself a sweet-as-sugar headache that impeded sleep until about 4:00, 4:15.

So now, I'm really tired. And in calculus class. (Which I skipped yesterday in favor of playing lots of Civilization 4. I really wish I'd done something more productive like finish my fucking essays.) But it's the last day! ^.^ Well, the final's on Monday. But it's the last day of learning new material, most of which I will likely never use unless we use vectors all over the place in economics.

Now for another blurb! About news! (It's like french fries--so many respectable blogs nowadays covers news in some respect, so you feel like you have to keep up. Not that Hasta la Byebye is exactly respectable, but humor me.)

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, stop being a fuckwad! While it's entirely possible that you indeed won the presidential election in Mexico, abusing your powers as mayor of Mexico City to try to sway popular support (and the notoriously independent Trife) is a very icky thing of you to be doing. Maybe I'm just biased against populist dickheads in Latin America who know jack but to rouse rabble. Honestly, your rival Mr. Calderón, isn't my favorite choice, but then again sometimes you dislike all the candidates in a race. But really, man, you're contesting results from 55,000+ of the ~130,000 polling stations, compared to 1,500 from Calderón's PAN and 800 from the old rulers, the PRI. Bad Mr. Obrador! Bad! Stop being a fuckass!

And class started like two minutes ago. So I shall leave. Hasta la Byebye, suckahs.

You know, I just noticed the irony at the end of my post. A simple blurb won't do it justice, but then WHAM! A blurb, out of nowhere. I think a different zone of my brain took over midparagraph. Or the TalkTalkTalk Party or its paramilitary TalkTalkTalk Army was behind this. Bastardly terrorist-types, always making me blurt out things.

Oh come on. Don't tell me you don't have a parliament in your head. With terrorists.

Anyway, hasta la byebye. For reals, bitches.

I was just randomly poking around a few minutes ago when somehow something made me move towards The Mountain Goats. I can't even remember what I was doing, and though I could likely hit the back button on my browser several times to find out, I don't particularly want to.

I was at their site, reading what they put up for their bio, and it was pretty weird. But good. I really liked it even though I hardly understood it. I then went on to check out their not-terribly-awesome Wikipedia article, which kind of got me wondering about artistry and such things. Like, apparently The Mountain Goats (or, perhaps more accurately, John Darnielle and whoever he was with--I think) used to just record stuff all the time and lose track of whatever hadn't been committed to aural media. I try to imagine what that kind of life must be like, to be creating in a steady flow like that; I'm sure lots of people do it, but I don't really hear about it or think about it too much. Also I wonder of the mental status of Mr. Darnielle. I mean, what's your take on reality when you're writing songs all the time (and may or may not be sticking substances into yourself left and right)?

Not sure exactly what my thoughts about all that were or if I even had any. I just thought it was strange. And pretty cool--I'll need to be buying something from The Mountain Goats soon, perhaps when I have money.

Speaking of money, or rather employment, it turns out that Primerica Financial Services isn't for me after all. How do I know this? Actually, I don't. But I think I decided that I would probably doing way more sales-type work than I would like, and that this place was way too far away for me to bother with (it's somewhere between Beltway 8 and 610, off a road named Bingle--not that I know what that means exactly, but it's roughly 30 minutes away). I think I would rather be a waiter. And/Or, even better, a tutor of economics. That way, when I fill out my resume, four of my previous five work experiences could be tutoring! Squee!

But yeah, I could also use an automobile to make jobiness easier for me, but those things cost lots of money, and I'm poor. I have a few hundred dollars stashed away for emergencies (or just backpacking across Europe, whichever comes first), but most of that money is untouchable. I should totally resume my poker-playing, which is something that I suspended ever since my hard drive died.

What? You don't remember my hard drive dying? Well I don't remember posting about it, so I'll give you the skinny: a month or so ago my laptop locked up when some bad thing of some sort happened. It's alltogether possible that it would have corrected itself had I given it time to do so, but for some reason I was impatient and I held down the power button until my computer shut off. And shut off it did, though something also made an unpleasant click-type noise. When I turned my computer back on a few seconds later, I was being warned of imminent hard drive failure. After checking to make sure that it was indeed being stalked by Death, I ordered a newer, faster, bigger hard drive. And now I have it. But I also have to install every program that I have all over again, and I never bothered to install the poker software thingy. So I haven't played poker in a long time. And I'd been suffering mixed fortunes before I switched hard drives; hadn't had the luxury of receiving a check in months.

And now you know. Really do need to work on that getting-money-from-poker thing, though.

Also I got a 100 on the calculus test I took yesterday. I'm so smart. So now I'm just going to skip class tomorrow so I can finish up my UT essays and send off my resume and one recommendation letter (which isn't even from a professor--what was I thinking?).

I wish I'd applied to UT before now. I know I hurt my chances at least a little by waiting. And I know that I will forever wonder "what-if?" if I am denied admission. I already wonder that too much already. Alas, I'll just have to make my essays impervious to doom.

Hope you enjoyed this edition of Hasta la Byebye. I considered leaving a comment related to something in the news, but I'm too tired and cranky to do that right now. Plus, what's in the news right now but Lebanon? Exactly. And that's much more complicated an issue than a simple blurb will give justice to. I think tenuous majorities in the Knesset and politicking in general causes too many problems in the Middle East--gives Israel's hawks too much sway, says I.

But I won't be getting into that, especially when I'm no expert on Israel or its Arab buddies. So ciao, my good people! And hasta la byebye!

Can't stay long.

I slept through dinner, so now I have to make myself pre-packaged tortellini to prevent starvation. The water doth climb to a boil as I write.

But I really wanted to put something up. Just so that I wouldn't forget to, I guess. I've been thinking a lot about sweet sexy Hasta La Byebye. Just not posting.

And now! To answer my telephone! And cook my food!

Hasta la byebye!