The band Korn announced this week that its guitarist would be leaving the band to dedicate his life to Jesus.

Which made it all the more hilarious (and likely intentional) that Comedy Central aired the Korn's Groovy Pirate Ghost Mystery episode of South Park last night. It's a vile episode, even by South Park standards, and includes such classic and timely quotes as:

Fr. Maxi: Halloween is an abomination of God! A celebration of the occult!
DJ: Yeah, and how about KoRn playing the big concert tomorrow? Pretty exciting, huh?
Fr. Maxi: KoRn is a devil-worshipping group that plays violent music! If we allow that demon band to play on this most unholy of holidays, we may incur the full wrath of evil!

(The guy later explained to MTV news that it was a mite more complicated than it looked, but still. If he had ethical problems with the influence of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle on his young daughter, guest-voicing on a cartoon show with necrophilia jokes probably didn't help.)

Hunter S. Thompson has committed suicide.

A half-assed scientific theory

You know the new strain of HIV, right? The one that supposedly gave that New York dude full-blown AIDS in months instead of years? I don't have the timeline in front of me but I remember it being that he tested HIV-negative in November 2003, HIV-positive in late 2004, and had AIDS by early 2005.

What if the new HIV doesn't give you AIDS faster, but only appears to give you AIDS faster by creating false negatives on HIV tests for many years?

My infinitely more scientific half says this isn't completely nuts, as theories go, since there is a segment of the biology community that wonders if viruses may be intelligent.

It's been more than 20 years...it shouldn't be *too* shocking that a virus manages to evolve.

It's scary either way, but I think my version is actually scarier. Fortunately, Occam's razor says I'm wrong (plus: dammit, Jim, I'm an English major, not an evolutionary biologist!)

Year of the rooster
haiku - yeah, two thousand and
five's a cock alright.

Marathon update

Rick posts that his "modest goals (in order)" for the marathon are:
"1) Finish
"2) Finish in 6 hours"

My goals are even more modest.
1) Finish
2) Finish in 6 hours
3) Don't die

The third is almost guaranteed (I had my doubts at first), the first is also pretty darn likely, and the second is actually starting to look feasible. If all goes as planned tomorrow, I'll be up to 4 miles of straight jogging in 45 minutes or so. Slow, if you're a real runner, but perhaps fast enough to make up for any 4 mph or less walking/crawling/crying-on-the-side-of-the-road that comes in the 22.2 miles that follow.

Ever time I jog now, I run (well, shuffle) further than I ever have in my life. Hard to believe I'm the same person who got a D in phys ed all those years ago and was always last picked. I wish someone had told me that there are other facets of physical fitness than speed and coordination. It also would have been nice if I'd gotten over my "athletic=dumb" prejudice, oh, say, a decade earlier.

No matter. I say once more, "Up yours, 30!"

Deliver me from teenagers

Today hurt. Drama all around, with me uttering the phrase, "But you're not in a gang...are you?" being the least of it.

But this converastion, during the free time after the math test, made up for it somewhat:
Student D: How do you say "thank you" in French?
Me: "Merci."
D: Sounds like "mercy."
Me: Yes, it does.
Student J: Wait, say it again?
Me: "Merci."
J: Sounds like "Morrissey."
Me: Right. Thank you, lead singer of the Smiths, same difference.
J, patiently: No, miss, Morrissey WAS the lead singer of the Smiths, then he went solo.
Me: I know that. Hey, I saw Morrissey in concert probably the year you were born.
J: 1991?
Me: I think so.
J: So when did he turn gay?
Me: I believe he was probably born that way.
J: Wha...?
[bell mercifully rings]

The continued slouch towards Bethlehem

* Exhibit A: "The US Marine Corps has publicly upbraided one of its generals for his comments describing shooting people in Iraq as 'fun.' Discussing fighting in Iraq, the General said he liked brawling and enjoyed shooting people."

Glad someone is enjoying himself over there, I guess.

* Exhibit B: "US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has revealed he twice offered to resign during a crisis last year over prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib jail ... each time he offered to go, President Bush asked him to stay on ... But Mr Rumsfeld said steps had been taken to prevent a recurrence of such abuses."

Steps like an attorney general who thinks the Geneva Convention is quaint? By the way, how genius is it to make all your most controversial nominees racial/ethnic minorities so you can play the race card whenever anyone says your choice sucks? (Not that I just called Bush a genius; surely someone else in the White House has got to be the evil mastermind of the last four years.) "This is a breakthrough of incredible magnitude for Hispanic Americans and should not be diluted by partisan politics," crows a Republican Sentator. Okay, I bet no Hispanic person I know really wants to be associated with this dude, regardless of his ethnicity. I mean, the Bush administration has its share of evil, powerful women, too -- am I supposed to be filled with feminist pride now?

Speak of the devil...

* Exhibit C: "US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she sees no need to get involved in European efforts to persuade Iran to drop its nuclear programme ... Washington wants the Europeans to take a tougher stance in trying to get Iran to give up the programme altogether."

Yeah, and some people still think we're not going to restart the draft.

I still think Dubya and Condi are having sex. (Race card: "You just think that's the only way for a black woman to succeed!") You're not supposed to kiss your Secretary of State in public so often. Unless you're, you know, FRENCH.

The wrongest thing I saw at the closeout store today:

Winnie The Pooh thongs.

(Gosh, I wonder why those were discontinued.)

***

I got the first tape of the 1977 miniseries "Roots" out of the library this week. It seems appropriate to note, as we approach the one year anniversary of Janet Jackson's oh-so-traumatizing wardrobe malfunction, that some extras playing 1700s Africans walk around with their GOD FORBID BREASTS exposed. And this was on TV. Decades ago. And I can't find any evidence online that anyone gave a damn.

***

Yesterday, two kids told me it didn't matter if they learned math because they're going to drop out anyway.

Today, one of them was full of questions about high school. What happens if you fail algebra? Do you have to take geometry and algebra both at once then? What do you take junior year?

How do you spell capricious? T-E-E-N-A-G-E-R.

***

It turns out the tutor who was mysteriously dismissed last fall was -- prepare the ginger ale, Coke syrup, or other anti-vomiting agent of your choice -- dating a student.

I know some 14-year-old girls look like women, but ew.

Warning: Useless post on the suckitude of dentistry

I always wait long enough between dentist appointments that I have cavities. Thus it's always so long between cavity fillings that I forget how druggy (and not in the good way) novacaine makes me. It doesn't help that the dentist shot me up with so much my left eye felt numb. I skipped my Spanish class and made it awake for about an hour and a half afterwards, watching Spongebob and dribbling cream of mushroom soup on myself like an infant.

Also, the pain in my upper right teeth was not where the cavities were located. Turns out all the stressed out gnashing of teeth I did in The Jersey Period of last month inflamed my ligaments. The surprisingly pleasant dentist who reviewed my X-rays said he could tell I'd stopped with the grinding (surely not what Prince meant in "Darling Nikki") but also that I did it on-again-off-again enough that I should get a $200 nightguard because I'm wearing down my enamel. Bother.

[Rick, I think the woman who cleaned my teeth was the asshole who kept trying to sell you cosmetic densitry, because she did the same thing to me, even after I VERY firmly told her I was not interested in hearing about it.]

How can you write a general-audience article about imaginary friends and reference "Hide and Seek" but not "Foster's"? Tsk tsk.