The Agrinautica

   I woke up abruptly in the early predawn blackness this morning, to the sound of squawking chickens. The chicken coop is not far from my room, so I could hear them quite well, and easily pictures feathers flying all over the place as a fox ravaged them.
   So I got up and went out to see what could be done about it. But as soon as I left my room I found a situation I had not expected -- my housemate is chasing chickens around the house, and as soon as she sees me she starts apologizing and saying over and over again "this has never happened before!"
   Apparently, what happened is that she was headed to work and had gone to let the chickens out of their coop. But at the time she opened the coop she had the door to the house open, not fifteen feet from the facing coop door, and the light on in the house. The chooks, as they call chickens in Australia (one of the very best Australianisms in my opinion), made a beeline for this illuminated beacon, right from the coop into the house. Once in the house they proceeded to hide under furniture, poop everywhere, and set up wild squawking when she got close to actually capturing one of them.
   One by one we were able to corral and catch the wily birds, though some of them evaded us from room to room, under beds and out the other side. And then I went back to bed. Gosh dang chooks!

   So today the landlord called and informed me that my roommate had not paid his share of the rent in September. Additionally the amount he gave me this month does not reflect the fact that we are down a roommate. So my roommate owes me $1,048.98. )=
   Additionally, the roommate we were supposed to lose at the end of August stayed here until about the end of September, and didn't pay rent. Being out of town I wasn't aware of this until I got here and found him here. We are certainly going to try to collect on him, but as he's moved back to the Bay area I'm not terribly optimistic. )=


   In more pleasant news, last night I was playing Civ III (no doubt patrolling for Portuguese with my battleship the HMS Gavel), when Allan Rae talked me into being sociable and I went with him and two other lads to a party that happened to be occuring at the old Pirate Ship House on Mulberry.
   There I found my good friend Justice Tim Coady to be among the current residents. Noteworthy people represented were too numerous to attempt to catalogue here, and awesome times were held by all. Eventually I left around 4am.


   Tonight C-Bunch, Olivia & co are having a party at their place. Should be piles of fun.


Picture of the Day

   This is entry number six. Yes it is being posted technically on the 7th, but hey I already wrote a substansive entry or two on the 6th, so you can deal. Anyway I was working on this at 11, but then Kristy tempted me with food.

Theological Degeneracy
   First off a brief theological announcement. A lot of people were all worked up about it being 06/06/06 today. To quote Shemek "Last time I checked there was a 6/6/06 in 1906, and 1806, and 1706 and so on... And, upon further investigation of any historical document, religious or academic, nothing of any significance happend on those dates. So shut the fuck up"
   More theologically though, the origin of this 666 thing lies in Revelation 13:16-18, which reads: "Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell who does not have the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom: let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number. Its number is six threescore six" - whatever the hell that means. But the point is, its a name. It is not a place, it is not a date, it is a name. Meaning: there is no basis at all for the date of 06/06/06 to mean anything at all, so yeah, shut the crap up

Flatmate Degeneracy
   Anyway this morning I woke up and found a new plate in the sink, all lathered with catsup, directly under the "NO NEW PLATES IN SINK" sign. I placed a post-it note on the plate that said "WTF" and another on the sign with an arrow to the part that reads "if you don't have time to wash your plate asap, leave it in your room until you do" which said "we all agreed to this, if you think the policy should be changed please talk to us."
   When I got back from work the plate was gone, but there was another on the floor in the livingroom. I placed a "WTF - please see agreement" post-it on this as well. I declare War on Degeneracy (Remember the War on Wrong?); and I will prosecute offenders to the fullest extent of Apartment Law (Which currently consists of one clause with three subpoints).


   Anyway, the following are some guidelines of roommate ethics which I think one should do well to adhere-to.
   If you and your flatmates share most food:

• Except with extremely mundane items like bread & milk, thou shouldst not be the first to open a flatmate's food item
  
• Thou should not be the one to finish a flatmate's food item.
  
• If thou finisheth someone else's food item, for god's sake throw away the package (there seems to be some guilt dynamic or something that causes people not to throw away the container/package when they finish someone else's item, as if that would be admitting they finished it).
  
• Except with mundane items, try to resist consuming more than say a third of thine flatmate's food item.
  
• If thine flatmate gets something really unusual that they don't usually get, YOU SHOULD NOT EAT IT -- they probably had plans for it themselves
  
• Try to pull thine own weight in food purchases.

   Obviously, most of these are inspired by personal experience. And when they happened I was like "shouldn't one just KNOW not to do that?!" Well now you know. Obviously not starting someone else's food is pretty minor.. finishing it just slightly more disconcerting...

   And then there are the rules themselves. You can't blame your roommates for not following these guidelines if they haven't been set out for them, but you should probably try to follow them yourself to avoid tension. More on rules:

• If you all voluntarily entered into the lease with no discussed "rules" you can't just proclaim them on your roommates
  
• if rules become necessary adopt them by unanimity if possible, if its really a problem you can go to 2/3rds - majority might be acceptable in some circumstances
  
• if rules become necessary, set them down in writing so there can be no dispute and post them somewhere for reference.
  
• In enforcing rule compliance, try to keep it positive, & nonaccusatory. For example I found that stating the apparent violation of the rules (or in this case labelling the indesputable evidence) and asking if they thought the rule should be changed avoided more confrontational possibilities.

Degenerate Blogging Mentalities
   Anyway, we've had at least 22 people declare themselves as joining 30 in 30 III. Two people have since formally thrown in the towel, and I have a feeling a large number of silently faided away. As I've said I think one of my favourite parts of 30 in 30 is the sense of community and I have done a lot to try to facilitate interaction. I'm very pleased to find that a number of the newcomers now are commenting and building off one another. Tomorrow will mark the seventh day, the end of the first week of this madness. Tomorrow I am going to try to determine who is still really here, just to facilitate group cohesion.
   Everyone is free to decide for themselves what 30 in 30 means to them, but to me, personally, it is not about elitism, and its not about exclusiveness, and these things endanger the future of 30 in 30. I see 30 in 30 as something that is to reach out to bring in new bloggers and facilitate their ability to be all that they can be -- not to be judged by rotian commiepuritan cadres or subjected to immature reactionist abuse by otian brownshirts.
   As such, I will not be continuing to track these negative elements in my community support efforts if they are are still being exclusionary tomorrow when I do my analysis.
   In keeping with my thoughts on the individual ability to define 30 in 30 for oneself, I encourage others to maintain concordant amity with as many participants they desire.


Positive Thoughts
   Today was an epic day of blogging. Several of the 30 in 30 first-timers really distinguished themselves. You all are really coming into your own.
   My pick of the day goes to xaositecte, for his template entry for hilarity in making an actually tasteful satire of us all; but he's followed closely by bartgroks, who actually uses the template for an entry. Incidently, I actually do have an entry template. =[
   apoplecticfittz actually once again blew us all away with a legendary blog stunt - he drank a gallon of milk in under an hour!!! Truly we live in a time of heroes.

PS: This election is really crazy -- Results are coming in bit by bit, at a rate of like 10% an hour. Every time it updates it switches between Heystek being the second person elected, or Levy. /=

   Just a quick update here:

(A) if anyone wants to see the Plain White T's in SF tomorrow, please tell me and we'll carpool on down or something - especially if you can drive cause I'm not looking forward to driving around SF.


(B) My apartment-mate wdsguy is now employed by the pornography industry. Yesterday he went to a party his boss put on.. there are pictures of it on the web somewhere. Early for a halloween party but apparently there's a huge pornography industry halloween party next weekend and the boss didn't want to conflict with it. Today wdsguy was invited to a shoot in tahoe but he had to study. His boss reports that "there are some perks to working in the industry, for example girls will offer you sex."


This entry rated: R

Poll: Is "proxyzation" too silly a word to coin for a term paper? I'm writing about the tendency of states to sponsor separatist groups within states they wish to weaken rather than wage war against them -- carrying out their intentions by proxy in other words -- proxyzation.


   Today I mentioned to my roommate Adrian that I craved icecream sandwiches. He responded "me too! Lets get some!" and forthwith we set off walking down to the former Ray's Food Place (now "Food Faire" or something lame like that).
   I'm not a fan of these hot summery days, but the warm evenings can't be beat. Walking back I got nostalgic and fondly recalled all the warm summer evening adventures of my college career and concluded that all in all college is a truly wonderful experience and all the people I know back home who chose not to go to college really made the worst decision of their lives (completely leaving the educational and career inhancing aspects out of it, which multiplies my conclusion). [/sappiness]


   In another random declaration of craving, I later developed a severe craving for corned beef, boiled cabbage, and mashed potatoes. I think I can attribute this actually to roommate Jill polling us on behalf of her boyfriend uncommited lover Misha "what goes well with sausage?" And she wrinked her nose at me over boiled cabbage and mashed potatoes! Such lack of culture.
   Anyway, it only dawned on me AFTER I'd been telling Kristy about my craving and continued on to call my mother to book such a meal for when I got home that I realized that it was St Patricks Day and I happened to be craving the most Irish meal imaginable. Weird.
   And then I find out that Sarina apparently cooked that exact meal today but Kristy and I didn't find out until it was too late. I was absolutely heartbroken.

   On Sunday I flyered for Lamar again, Monday I went to Fuzios with Kristy, and today I voted.
   A certain ASUCD senator-elect helped us on Sunday. We'll call him Y. He said he had voted for me when I ran for senate even though he didn't agree with my politics. I said "I don't make political statements, so how can you not like my politics?" He said "I thought you were a libertarian" "No.. libertarians are completely irrational."
   For the record, I am not a libertarian. Libertarians are what you get when you take a republican, remove their moral convictions and any rationality you may find. I am militantly independant, and wholly rational. Every political spectrum test I've ever taken has put me dead center of the political spectrum. I am the swing voter and its not because I don't care.
   Being registered "decline to state" allows me to vote most party's ballot in the primaries. Obviously the republican one has but one choice on it so there's no point in voting that, and it would be less than rational to vote for a third party, so I found myself evaluating the democratic candidates. Now I know all these candidates have been making a lot of noise lately and everyone has been all hepped up on their favorite candidate for months now, but I'm proud to say I had no preconcieved opinion at all before I started reading their statements. It pleases me to know that the millions of dollars spent on advertising were completely lost on me (I don't watch TV and have thus far pointedly ignored everyone's best efforts at selling me the candidates). I am the swing voter and only rational assimilation of qualifications and statements will get my vote.

   No I'm not telling you who I decided upon. I don't make political statements.


Today's Controversy
   Dixon Ticonderoga or Sanford, which pencils are the best? I have to say, I have a box of a dozen Ticonderoga, and despite the claim on the box, these "1388-2 soft" pencil's are NOT in my opinion the "world's best pencil" as the box claims. I have a few Sanford pencils which I find quite delightful, but they're old and getting short. Another strong contender though is the paper-mate pencil that I acquired after someone administered a weird poll to pavelthegeek and I about the herbs found in sobe...


Picture of the Day

Joe Fitzmorris
Chairman, Davis College Republicans
© Kris Fricke 2003

Social Skills
   It has come to my attention that certain people lack basic social skills.
   Well I guess we all knew this, but I'm talking about roommates (/apartmentmates). Other people's rooommates and perhaps some I may currently or previously have had. I don't want to talk about anyone specific here, just the amalgamation of obviously antisocial things I've seen roommates do.
   (1) One should not needlessly criticize one's roommates activities. If ones roommate removes a pizza using a nearby dishtowel rather heaven forbid than the oven mitt (though not touching the pizza itself with the towel, just the clean pan), it is certainly not worth criticizing them over.
   (2) Do not announce for absolutely no reason "I am not going to empty the dishwasher / take out the trash / whatever." If you feel it absolutely necessary for some reason, at least give a reason and be apologetic about it.
   (3) Do not hold your roommate's possessions hostage over a behavior you percieve to be unpreferable. ESPECIALLY if you haven't even expressed that opinion to them yet.
   (4) When they say "hi" or "good morning" to you, respond.

   Thats all I can think of off the top of my head at the moment. These are all actual social deficiencies exhibited by roommates of mine or my close friends. Feel free to share your own recommendations of things all roommates ought to know as well.


Standard Operating Procedure
   It should also be kept in mind, that the duties habitually exercised by an organization are by no means necessarily exhaustive of those they may be able to do or even be responsible for doing.
   "Policy" will generally reflect the habitual actions of an organizational entity, but by no means are exhaustive of what the entity may be called on to do.
   The duties and/or responsibilities placed on an organization are likely to change for example, if a related organization that previously was unfunctional begins operating again, or if say previous policy has created an exta-ordinary circumstance which must be altered by intervention of a judicial authority calling upon said entity(/ies) to excercise abilities not usually required.

   This may seem quite random, but it has come to my attention recently that certain persons involved in organizational entities with responsibilities and duties have developed a certain worship of policy and habitual practice, damaging their ability to work at their full potential.


Picture of the Day

Bratislava, Slovakia
© Kris Fricke 1999