Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

stories

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Today was a long day. Sandwiched inbetween our normal visit schedule to admissions and the summer orientation schedule, today was a Sneak Preview event for engineers and design arts students. It was also the hottest day so far this year. These two factors combined made every little bit of the day last longer than it was ever intended to, and produced one too many groucy parents for my taste. They complained about everything… tour wasn’t long enough, tour was too long, not enough water, too much water with other things excluded, not enough information about academics, not enough information about student life…. and these contrasting viewpoints were just from the handful of evaluations i snatched a glance at. I suppose the moral is that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, especially when the mercury gets past the 9-0 mark.


However, my day was even longer than all that would imply for a very special reason: i somehow elected myself to be our Dragon mascot. Now, this wasn’t just something i came up with willy-nilly… the perspective engineers were building catapults, and they wanted something for them to be able to aim their velcro-covered whiffle balls at. So, first my job was getting the suit and finding a volunteer, but it soon became finding a volunteer to replace me in the schedule of events so that i could wear the suite.


Have you ever been a mascot? The feet are giant-sized novelty-slippers that are too big to fit onto stairs. The body is saggy and feels a lot like being wrapped up in terrycloth only, when wrapped in terrycloth, how often do you have a tail that’s over a yard long? But, the most important consideration in how awkward a mascot suit is to maneuver in is the head. Since our mascot is a cartoony dragon, i get topeer out of the maw of the mighty beast… and the maw continues for nearly a foot beyond my eyes before it ends. My eyes and ears and spiny-things extend far enough above the top of my head that i cannot touch my hands together over top of it.

Add all of this together to get me, as the dragon, standing in the middle of the grand court of our Main Building schmoozing with our guests and then having them fire small projectiles at my head. In the process i got to pose with our elusive President Papadakis, pick my dragon-teeth with pieces of catapult Connex, and be pummeled again and again in the crotch by low flying whiffle balls. However, as much as i might complain, please note that 50% + 1 of our attendees dropped off applications, which is better than average for an event so early in the application process for rising Seniors. So, if you’ll excuse me, i’m off to take a well-deserved nap before beginning tonight’s recording. Afterall, i went to bed rather late last night…

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4729679/

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On Friday night i had an argument with Justin about what was better: sex or concerts.


To understand the context of this discussion, you need to know a few things about Justin. First, he’s my “one male friend.” I don’t mean this to imply that i don’t consider any other men as close friends, but Justin is my guy friend… the only human being on Earth who you’ll catch me assessing the merits of an ass to, or talking about who i truly think is “hot.” Justin has impeccable taste in music, but it isn’t any of the organic thoughtful music you hear me whine about from day to day, it’s bump’n’grind and rhythm’n’blues with Prince at the helm of his collection as his own version of Garbage or Ani DiFranco. Finally, Justin and i have known each other for a long time, and while we don’t always agree with each other i tend to defend him in conversation just because i get to play advocate to his devil.

So, on Friday night we had taken one too many purity tests and everyone had ingested at least a shot of some sort of Jersey moonshine that came in an unmarked plastic anti-freeze jug, and somehow we started talking about sex and music. I opined that an amazing concert is better than good sex, and that a great song easily outpaces a good orgasm. And, Justin ripped me to shreds. How could i value something audible and intangible over sweaty lusty tangled bodies in heat? How could i rank singing along to a great song higher than getting off?

Two things became rapidly apparent in this conversation. The first was that neither of us were referring to “making love,” but to sex – and that in my book the latter doesn’t really exist without some semblance of the former so “sex” as an act wasn’t even comparable to a really shitty pop concert. The second was that Justin had only ever seen one or two concerts where the performer wasn’t merely reciting their catalogue of songs to the audience. With such incompatible views on sex and concerts, it became obvious within a few minutes that Justin and i were meant to agree to disagree.

Physical attraction is a wonderful thing, but in my world i lust after music. Imported singles make me hot under the collar. Newly announced release dates make my heart skip a beat. Getting good seats at a concert evokes a cry of passion. The day that Izabelle and i charged our Madonna tickets to my credit card my whole world was an excited explosion of joy and rapturous numbness … it was hard to believe i was living rather than dreaming. And, yet, somehow i’m sitting here at my computer and in four hours i’ll be seated inside of the First Union Center, and the lights will go down, and i will suddenly find myself in the same room as Madonna for the first time in over a decade. And, though i’ll be singing along to song after song about physical attraction and lust, i’ll know in my heart that it’s love that matters. And, right now, the love i will have for the woman singing to me from a stage in South Philly is greater than anything i could feel for anyone i’m sharing space, a bed, or body fluids with. When Madonna strums her guitar to open “Candy Perfume Girl,” or when she explodes into the vocals of “Ray of Light,” or when she closes the show with a electronically infused “Holiday,” i will be barely able to catch my breath – those moments will be ones i’ll try to replicate for years without ever being able to put them into words. The experience will be between Madonna and i and thousands of other adoring fans, and we’ll be the only ones who will ever be able to understand.


Maybe one isn’t quantitatively better than the other, but i think each of us is still a virgin with respect to what we’re not defending. And, the same way that making love to someone for the first time must eclipse everything that came before, tonight i’ll be like a virgin again; touched for the very first time.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4671183/

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Me and Wheels don’t really get along.

Cars and I generally don’t like each other and though i can drive them in an emergency i don’t find them particularly easy to navigate with or around. And, while bicycles make me perfectly comfortable despite my general disbelief that they can even stay upright with me perched on top, i learned this weekend that Rollerblades are obviously in collusion with their four-wheeled cousins as opposed to having an uneasy agreement with me as their bi-wheeled bretheren do.

Matt & Ayelet seemed pretty sure i’d be able to skate without much ado, but they neglected the fact that i hadn’t ever really been rollerskating or iceskating so that we were starting from scratch. Locomoting was not entirely difficult, but it hurt as my ankles turned and tilted in skates too narrow for my feet. Stopping proved to be challenging, and no easier on my ankles. Falling was easy; i just made sure to fall backwards and i absorbed the impact again and again with my well-cushioned backside with nary a bruise to be seen. However, i wasn’t going to make it down the 3 mile trail and back again with a combination of unsure 10-meter glides combined with full-throttle ass-first plummets to the ground, so i traded Sara the skates for a bike that was too tall for me to mount; to get onto the seat i had to start pedaling with the right pedal at its peak so that i could hop onto the seat as i pushed it down and around.

I like bicycles, and the hum of tires on asphalt while the world is reduced to road and breeze and fireflies. I rode ahead of them until my legs got tired and then i just kept pace while singing harmony with Ayelet and talking about vodka with Matt. There wasn’t any falling, but i suppose it was just as easy a thing to do.


Falling is always easy.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/07/4330452/

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We’re getting new computers in the office and it’s not as though it’s the most interesting event ever, but it keeps bringing up such fun little interactions with people that i can hardly spare you each and ever one of them.

We’re supposed to move all of our files into a single folder on our desktops to ease the pain of all this computer switching; all of our folders will be moved onto a network computer and then we can individually get them back after the new pcs get hooked up. My folder consists of a bunch of Admissions silliness, a backup of Crushing, the installation file of MusicMatch, and full-length mp3s of my demo cd. So, today the computer woman came around to all of our desks to check in on if we have our folders ready (i feel like i’m packing up for some kind of alien abduction), and upon seeing the contents of my folder she immediately started in on the harping, obviously relishing her role as the raining on my tech-parade.


“You can’t bring programs with you,” she reprimanded me sternly. “Yes, i know, but this is the extracting file for it, not a program.” “Oh, well, that’s not allowed either. And, anyway, it’s for entertainment purposes,” she obviously ad-libs (the no-programs policy was aimed at people who didn’t know any better and were trying to bring Outlook and Filemaker with them; and, furthermore, i had MusicMatch because i was imbedding sound files into powerpoint for the Director of Admissions). While she tried to complain further about me wanting to bring a program with me, i opened up ws_ftp and uploaded it to Uprush where i can retrieve it later with no fuss and deleted the file.

“There, see, it’s gone.”

At this point Ms. Computer-Woman was not pleased with my ability to neatly avoid her crackdown on my electronic life. Searching my screen for her next target, her eyes widened and she exclaimed with some amount of glee: “You’ll have to delete those mp3s!,” to which i responded “But, they’re mine.” Here i could tell she was going in for the kill and so i let her have her moment of glory “University policy on Napster blahblahblah (gee, do i have Napster on my machine? That’s a negative.) blahblahblah fair use policy.” After she finished her (obviously rehearsed) speech i fixed her with the calmest stare i could possibly muster and replied “I’m sorry, maybe you didn’t understand my meaning. I own the lyrics, music, and arrangements to these songs as well as their copyright. They’re from my last album. They belong to me as much as my Annual Report Statistics spreadsheet does. I could show you my handwritten first drafts of them if you’d like.”

Her mouth opened and closed like that of a fish and then we exchanged the hugest neon smiles that ever existed on earth, and she flitted away to suck away all of the entertainment for her next victim.


Ms. Computer-Woman – 0. Technically educated sarcastic singer-songwriter bastard – 1.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/06/4289697/

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There’s a whole story that goes along with this post but this post is a story in and of itself, so maybe i’ll tell the other part some other time. Anyhow, here is the crux of it: We have 20 high school guidance counselors from up and and down the East Coast staying with us here at Drexel while they receive training from the National Institute of Technology. Seeing as how i work in the admissions office and that i’m (apparently) some sort of secret weapon with my disarming naivité and big city customs, i’ve been deployed repeatedly to help out these counselors (with the hope, i would suppose, that they’ll want their students to apply to Drexel in the future so that they can be as jittery and disarming as i am).

My position as designated schmoozer has left me with ample time to sit back and observe the N.I.T. instructors at work and in their own conversations, and i have to say that their technical merit is nearly as uninspiring as their name. The two most intense technical conversations i’ve personally eavesdropped were one about using Mailing Lists effectively and another about setting up an FTP server hub, both of which i understood very simply (hell, i eat that shit for lunch. After all, i am a regular reader of Linkstew and Fury). As for their work, they’re training the counselors in basic internet applications using IE, Netscape, and Powerpoint, and therein lies my problem with this whole charade of technological advancement.


At a reception for the counselors last night more than one of them remarked to me that they had spent time at similar trainings in the mid-90’s, but that technology had obviously advanced so much since then that they needed to train again. While this is true, i began using the internet in the mid-90’s at the most basic entry-level without a hint of instruction and now i’m certainly able to do anything they’re being taught this week at Drexel. So, where’s the difference? Don’t say that it’s because i’m young and because this is a hobby, because we all know urban professionals who’ve picked up the same ‘net fluency on the job over the last half decade. The problem, and the difference, lies in the fact that they’re being trained on application use instead of technology use.

The best example i can give is that in learning how to design a simple webpage for their counseling department to have a mailinglist signup on, they were all instructed to do so with Netscape Composer. When it came time to inform the counselors that they could change the colors of their background and their links, the counselors were shown the wonders of the ‘Fonts and Colors’ menu – which they ooh-ed and ahh-ed at enough to make me slightly naseous.

Now, i’ll be the last person to propose that we teach all of the counselors raw HTML coding from their first day on the job, but the flaw here is inherent in the design. They’re learning page construction on Netscape4.x, which is already obsolete, and they’re barely even learning how to change link colors. They have no concept of what’s going on behind the words and colors and italics of their page, and they are being trained not to care. This training will be out of date by the end of this year; had the instructors instead taken an extra thirty minutes to explain the tag and hexidecimal color values, the training would last them for nearly another half decade (not to mention the fact that really everyone uses style-sheets for color now, and that style sheets are dead-simple to learn from scratch when you don’t have a misunderstanding of HTML to get in your way and that they control a hell of a lot more than just color). So, these counselors are essentially paying money for airline tickets and “continuing education credits” to get barely fluent in software that is barely considered competetive, with the instructors knowing full well that they’ll have to run a new training session in another year or two when Netscape4 is finally put out to pasture as it should have been earlier this year.

Right. Stuff like this annoys me. When i taught my mother the rudiments of how to use her computer, i made sure not to root them in a single program suite. I taught her how to save files and copy and paste in something as simple as NotePad, and she scaled those skills to Microsoft Works and Netscape without batting her eyes. Similarly, in Netscape i taught her what to do rather than how to do it so she could figure it out on her own in IE if she ever switched over, and while she certainly doesn’t have her own subdomain of Uprush i’d like to think that she is savvy enough and well-prepared enough that she could learn PowerPoint or Composer in a fourth of the time these counselors are taking (neverminding how long it would take them if they were being taught the right way).

By far the worst part of this is that i keep schmoozing the instructors and they smile patronizingly at me when really their company’s website isn’t even coded as tightly as this shoddy little adventure held together in CSS, PHP, duct tape, and arcane prayers to the gods of blog. But, they all carry cell phones and wear business-casual shorts and have funny little conversations with each other about “downloading-to-floppy” and “maximizing user potential” and it’s all i can do not to bust up laughing.

sigh. No wonder i’m not an IST major; i couldn’t put up with all the bullshit.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2001/06/4287276/