Mishmash Musings

Granted, I don’t understand the game, but I have a feeling that even if I did, I wouldn’t be caught dead in this headgear!!!

(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)

Remember that Rolling Stone cover that featured Mulder and Scully (David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) in bed together? That came out right around the time I first started watching The X-Files, and really put me on course to be a shipper. Back then, I didn’t watch television shows primarily for the hookup potential of the leads, but it was impossible to resist the chemistry that these two characters had.

Anyway, I bring this up now because I’m planning on having an X-Files marathon this weekend. I have the complete series DVD box set, but haven’t watched too many eps out of it yet. A few days ago, however, I started in on Season 3 (one of the strongest) since the Olympics is ruining the regular TV schedule. I’m already sucked right back into their world!

One of the best things about The X-Files is how an episode could feature something seemingly mundane or completely outrageous and be totally compelling either way. For instance, one week Mulder and Scully would be tracking down a financier working some magic to embezzle funds from every health savings account he manages, and another week they’ll be tracking a tapeworm monster through the sewers of New Jersey. Just an incredible amount of diversity in the storylines!

I’m on my way out the door to get some Diet Coke, popcorn, and frozen pizza for this Friday evening with my favorite TV duo of all-time!

So right now my home “office” is in the back of the living room. I had originally put my computer hutch here so I could keep an eye on my son while he’s watching TV or playing video games. But now that he’s getting a little older and spends more time outside with his friends than in here in the living room, I’m thinking of moving my hutch to a quieter location — like the basement.

The basement is half-finished, so it’s not like I’d be relegating myself to a dank, dark cellar. It would be cool down there in the summer (which is a bonus since I wouldn’t need to use the air conditioner when I’m the only one home) and comfortable enough in winter if I use a space heater. I’d still have a TV down there too. The only problem is that my cell phone reception is hit or miss when I’m in the basement. I need to be able to take and make calls, so this could be a deal breaker. I wonder if a cell phone signal booster would help me take care of that problem.

Anyway, I think I would benefit from a change of scenery. Between work and grad school, I spend a lot of time at my desk here and I think I would be far more efficient in a quieter space. Then again, I don’t want to be completely removed from my family all evening, so I’d have to manage my time a lot better. I’ll have to think about this some more.

Ya know, I’ve been seeing SO MUCH coverage about the current crop of Toyota recalls that I have to wonder if there’s maybe an ulterior motive involved here. Like maybe the American press is using this as an opportunity to knock Toyota down a peg and help bolster sales of domestic vehicles from Ford and GM. Because really, isn’t this all going too far? Do we need daily freakin’ coverage of what’s happening with Toyota? Does the Toyota president’s testimony before Congress really need to be streamed live on the internet? WTF???

Look, I’m not saying that there aren’t problems with Toyotas, but my mom has a 2009 Camry that was recalled, checked, and deemed perfectly fine — which is something not enough of these news stories are getting across. Not EVERY SINGLE ONE of the millions of recalled cars has a freakin’ problem. But that’s not what you’d think after reading some of this mainstream media coverage. Oh, and Chrysler is recalling more than 330,000 minivans to fix airbags. How long do you think that will be in the news?

I’m not trying to minimize the seriousness of the Toyota accelerator and brake problems, but there really seems to be a lot of scare-mongering going on. I mean, I was looking for auto insurance quotes today and ended up getting sidetracked by like 50 different stories about Toyota. Please. We own two Toyotas right now and my mom owns one. We’ve never had any problems with any of them, and would continue buying the brand without hesitation.

Can you guess what the worst fries in America are? I’m not talking about taste here; this is strictly a calorie/fat thing. Well, according to the author of the wildly popular Eat This, Not That series of non-diet diet books, the Texas Cheese Fries w/Jalepeno Ranch from Chili’s wins this title. One order contains a whopping 1910 calories with 147g of fat and 3580mg of sodium. Ugh, simply looking at those numbers is practically enough to give me a heart attack! I love fries, but I’ll definitely stay away from this particular dish at Chili’s!

There was another shooting at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb last week, but unlike the massacre of a couple years ago, this one was an isolated incident. The gunman has been identified as Zach Isaacman, who claims to be a junior at NIU. He allegedly had followed a woman to her dorm at 3 in the morning, and started banging on the doors after she entered. Then another student named Brian Mulder came over and told Isaacman to leave, at which point Isaacman shot Mulder in the leg. Mulder is expected to recover.

It sounds like there could be more to the story than this, but new reports are still a bit short on details at this point. Why would Isaacman just suddenly shoot that other kid in the leg? Was he drunk? High? Did Mulder physically threaten him? Who knows.

I almost went to NIU during my undergrad days… now I’m thinking maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t!

I just read about a woman named Michelle Bisutti who finished medical school in 2003 with about $250,000 in student loans. After deferring payments (and probably flat-out missing some along the way), various fees and penalties along with interest charges have caused the loan to balloon to $555,000. The article then goes on to talk about how Bisutti — and several other former students who are having trouble repaying — are trying to get out of their commitments somehow.

I have to say that I have no sympathy for people like this. They all admit to not reading the fine print carefully enough, while the folks on the lenders’ side (Sallie Mae, usually), claim that the repayment terms and penalties are spelled out a number of times.

To me, it seems like people are just so used to being able to walk away from big debts that they figured they could do the same to their student loans. If you’re drowning in credit card debt, you can file for bankruptcy and have the debt disappear. If you can’t make your car or mortgage payments, you simply wait for repossession or foreclosure. It seems like at least some of the people profiled in the article acted like that’s precisely what they planned to do all along — just walk away from their debt. But student loans don’t work that way.

Look, I know college tuition is expensive and goes up every single year. But people need to SHOP AROUND for tuition the same way they shop around everywhere else. It doesn’t say where Bisutti’s degree came from, but it probably wasn’t an Ivy League school if she was too dumb to read and understand the fine print. I attended community college for two years to get my Associate’s degree before transferring to a place that granted Bachelor’s degrees. Then I earned my B.A. by taking a combination of online and on-campus classes, paying an average of $200 per credit ($600 per class). And now I’m in a grad school program that costs a total of $11,000 at the University of Missouri (though the SAME program is 4x that much at a “name brand” school like USC). I will finish with $0 in student loans. Not because I’m rich, but because I’m going to schools that I can AFFORD.

I posted a couple days ago about tweaking my ankle while jogging. Unfortunately, it hasn’t gotten any better, even though I’ve been icing it and resting. Plus, now it’s noticeably swollen when compared to my other ankle, so it might even be getting worse! I might have to go to the doctor if this doesn’t clear up soon.

Anyway, I’m definitely going to be laid up for a week or more as I try to recover. That’s going to throw my whole training schedule off, which means I’ll have a lot of catching up to do once I’m back in action. In the meantime, I wish I had some ephedra diet pills or something to help me combat the potential weight gain that might occur as a result of sitting on the couch for a week straight. Or, maybe I should just throw out all my potato chips and cookies right now to save myself from temptation!