Uncategorized

  • SHARKS!!!


        The Daily News

    1   Wow! Way to go, San Jose Sharks!!! Coming from behind and getting it done!!! Gotta love it.

    2   Just, wow. And Brandon Belt, nice work last night to sweep the Arizonas despite Timmeh. Go Woyers tonight!!! Steph Curry is a class act!!!

    3   Moving on, Part One: Anybody looking?

    4   I navigated Wednesday famously.

    5   Wasn't easy.

    6   Mid-day yesterday I lost my reading glasses.

    7   For a coot my age, that's like losing your eyes.

    8   Sometime around lunch.

    9   I went out to lunch, and went to this Pho place where I am the mayor.

    10  Whenever I go there, I usually pull out my phone and catch up on emails and business I can't do when I lecture or workshop.

    11  I have a confession to make.

    12   I am a creature of habit.

    13   I tend to have a place for everything and everything in its place.

    14   Each morning when I leave for work, I have my keys, wallet, and phone in specific pockets, for example.

    15   The Holy Three.

    16   Glasses remain either on, or in my coat pocket.

    17   I had a veggie shake the night before last, so was slightly hungry yesterday, and was in the mood for a fat bowl of hot Pho, which is manna on a Wednesday.

    18   I have two different places I frequent, and am mayor of both.

    19   Yesterday I sat down in my usual spot at the one next to Payless Shoes on Tully. I sat opposite a teevee where I can hear and watch all the horrors of modern living. I routinely took out my cell, reached into my coat pocket to get my reading glasses, and found them gone.

    20   I didn't even have my spare.

    21   I patted my coat pocket around fifteen times, like you do. Gone. It was official.

    22   I still ordered my stuff, but was disoriented. I looked at my phone and noticed that my arms weren't long enough to read.

    23   Yeesh.

    24   I somehow managed, because I goofed on people, a fun hobby from my gangsta days. I heard some sort of commotion and looked at the table next to me.

    25   There was this HUGE guy complaining to the guy who runs the place that he never received a pork chop with his lunch.

    26   Dude looked like he was pretty familiar with pork chops.

    27    It was none of my business.

    28    Usually I just glance at stuff like that and return to my business.

    29    This guy started to get loud.

    30    He must have weighed 350 pounds, I swear to you.

    31    The last thing he needed was a pork chop.

    32    I was sitting there trying to ignore it, and at the same time looking up, like you do.

    33    He was loud, but passive/aggressive.

    34    You know, "I paid for the side of pork chop and never got it. But it's okay man."

    35   Then he'd get loud about it.

    36   The guy who runs the Pho place finally told him that he would bring him a free pork chop.

    37    Big Boy was really rude, and he got all racist.

    38    I almost said something, but measured who would win in a fight.

    39   I thought that my wrestling training and lighter weight would make me quicker, but there was also the
    crazy factor. I know wrestling because I wrestled for three years when I was in high school. I always liked that
    I did that because to this day, I have some sort of self-defense training.

    40   When you're a guy, and you are younger, for example, random guys will occasionally try to kick you in the butt for no reason.

    41   Whenever that would happen, I would instinctively grab their foot and pull them off balance, watch them fall on their ass, and then say, "Never
    mess with a wrestler, dude!"

    42   In college, we were at a picnic one time, for example, and this big clumsy oaf came up behind me and tried to throw me to the ground. No reason. Just
    an idiot who was drunk.

    43   Within seconds I had my legs wrapped around his neck, locked in and ready to crush the moron. This was a move a friend of mine had taught me when I wrestled.

    44    I wasn't even that good of a wrestler, but better than any non-wrestler.

    45    But that was just some drunk college guy feeling his oats.

    46    I'll bet he had a pretty sore neck the next day.

    47    The guy in the Pho place was different.

    48    His aggression to the guy who owned the place was fueled with anger and racism.

    49    I still sized him up, but the nutso factor prevented me from intervening in the Great Pork Chop Debate.

    50    My blurry vision also was a bit of a factor.

    51    I'm not really sure how it all played out, because I had to get back up to the Chill. Short lunch on Wednesdays.

    52   I must confess it was all a trifle scary. Fox news, or whatever was broadcasting all sorts of fearful things, and my nerves have
    been on edge this entire year, so it all played on my neurosis. I got back to the Chill and was a tad frazzled.

    53   Little noises made me jumpy.

    54   Who needs that?

    55   It's into the three a.m. and all is now calm.

    56   As Vonnegut once put it, "I am better now. Word of honor. I am better now."

    57   Think I'll crawl back into bed.

    58   Hectic, blurry days. Wind and weirdness. Odd fat racists. Pork chops. Can't. Handle. It.

    59   Think I'll crawl back into bed.

    60    So glad it is already tomorrow.

    61   Have  a great day. Hope you enjoyed this mini-drama. Gottago.

    62    See you again.

    63    Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

            
                                                                                                                                                              

                                                                                             





  • The Daily News
    1   Can it be Wednesday already?

    2   Did the Woyers ALMOST come back last night?

    3   Did the Giants help the Warrior fans the same way the Warriors help the Giants' fans?

    4    Is anybody really worried?

    5    Everything will be what it will be.

    6    Moving on, Part One: I think I live in the world of sports because of all the idiocy that seems to
    be happening on a daily basis in the real news.

    7   I have never in my life seen so many horrid things happening in so short a period of time.

    8   It makes me wonder.

    9   It simply makes me wonder.

    10   I'll leave it at that.

    11   Moving on, Part Two: I've fallen immediately back into being a chronic insomniac.

    12   That didn't take long.

    13   I again tried grading papers and planning lessons until 8 o' clock last night but got caught up in the excitement of Bay Area sports.

    14   It's exhausting.

    15   But it's a good kind of exhausting.

    16    The only drawback to this is that we are well into a Wednesday.

    17    Wednesdays are meeting days.

    18    You know how I so adore Wednesdays.

    19   And how I adore meetings.

    20   Meh.

    21   Moving on, Part Three: Anybody looking?

    22    Somebody told me yesterday that we have just seventeen more days of school.

    23    That's almost impossible to believe.

    24    I might sound like a madman, but I'm not quite ready for the end of the school year.

    25    I have thousands more of things to teach my students.

    26    The realization that all this hard work I have put in is coming to an end in some way bothers.

    27    I think most teachers get these reservations when the year winds down.

    28   I think about things I never got around to, and how I want somehow to deliver all the goods in a shortened period of time.

    29   I'm also thinking that I'm not going to be able to do all I wanted to do.

    30   I'm also quite certain that on the first day of summer I won't really give any of it a second thought.

    31   For now, I have to pick and choose my choicest lessons.

    32   As an old geezer, I know I have plenty.

    33   Tricks of the trade.

    34   Goodness.

    35    <BOINGGGGG!>Three of those days are finals.

    36   Hmmm.

    37   If we're going to have the most enjoyable lessons in the next few weeks, I had better step up my game.

    38   The trouble is I have started an almost new lesson.

    39   Just yesterday I prepared new materials, and am excited about bringing it.

    40   I'm trying to do a mini-mini unit on Julius Caesar.

    41   It's going to work, but I also have my annual Cafe Verona, a day of poetry and open mics and guitar.

    42   Sorry.

    43   Just rambling.

    44   This is the way teachers think at the end of  the year.

    45   When I was in college, I wrote a series of blank books to myself. Same process as I am demonstrating here.

    46   Not diaries, mind you just simple blank books.  I called them account books.

    47   I called the series Thinking Aloud.

    48   It was more myself simply sorting out stuff on paper.

    49   I wound up with four or five books.

    50   I have no idea whatever happened to them.

    51   Cool title. Hey. <looking both ways> There's a double meaning in that.

    52   Today's DN is a bit like those books.

    53   Sometimes habits we gain when young spill over.

    54   Meh.

    55   We are well into the four a.m.

    56   Oh well. I think I'm ready to walk boldly into Wednesday.

    57   Some old movie is on, and somebody just said, "Good-bye, Heidi."

    58   I can't make this stuff up. I better go.

    59   Have a GREAT Wednesday.

    60  See you again.

    61  Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington


  •  



    The Daily News

    1   WHUH-Oh!

    2   I accidentally slept through the night.

    3   Insomniacs can't do that.

    4   We are used to dogs awakening us at odd hours.

    5   We are used to odd movies flickering before our eyes in the middle of the night.

    6   We are used to splitting our hours up so that we get plenty of sleep, yet remain productive.

    7   We are used to having left-over coffee heated up in the microwave, or even icing it down and then serving it up
    with creamer.

    8   We are used to living like grad-school students.

    9   I went to sleep WAY early last night and got NINE hours of sleep.

    10  This was following a twelve-hour work day in which I never stopped, drank eight glasses of Crystal Light, ate a salad shake
    containing tons of veggies and some soy milk, and did every healthy thing one is supposed to do.

    11  And I'm suddenly up and perky.

    12   I don't know if I can face this.

    13   I think what happened was that the dog had a nice day, and therefore a nice night.

    14   She didn't have her usual night terrors that she might not get fed.

    15   She was as relaxed as was I.

    16   Works for me.

    17   Moving on, Part One: The only drawback to getting a full night's sleep is that I wasn't able to waste time on
    this nonsense.

    18   The survival of the DN depends heavily on the fact that a) I am a hopeless insomniac, and b) I am a borderline neurotic.

    19   You remove one of those two things, and I am a healthy, happy person.

    20   I can't have that.

    21   Life without neurosis? ARE YOU KIDDING ME???

    22   Anybody looking?

    23   I decided long ago that I'm not happy unless I have something annoying me.

    24  This happiness thing is pretty new.

    25  Just sayin'.

    26   Moving on, Part Two: Just sayin'.

    27   That's what people say when they think their opinion is the right opinion.

    28   Just sayin'.

    29   That implies that whoever is listening will agree with them.

    30   "Well, you make a good point. I do think your argument that we should rid the world of puppies will save all of us
    from being attacked by older dogs has some merit."

    31   Just sayin'.

    32   Moving on, Part the Thoid. When did we turn this stupid?

    33   I'm thoroughly convinced it was when school districts decided to burn all the grammar books.

    34   Just sayin'.

    35   <looking around>

    36   Anybody lookin'?

    37   fjaffjsafj;lkfafjsafsj;lfdsafjsdk.

    38   Ever do that?

    39   You're writing with a deadline, and then you hear a bird chirping outside, for example.

    40   For a second, you envy the bird.

    41   Bird doesn't have deadlines.

    42   They just chill in trees, and then dive bomb worms, or Jack-in-the-Box bags.

    43   I just heard the bird and rattled off the keyboard keys.

    44   Bird caused that.

    45   Not my fault really.

    46   It was a natural reaction to the fact that the bird is free, and I am up against a ridiculous deadline.

    47   Moving on, Part the Next: Why do I suddenly feel like having a Jack breakfast?

    48   Oh.

    49   I ate WAY healthily last night and my body must be rejecting it.

    50   Anybody looking?

    51   Yeesh.

    52   Somehow I reached my goal of getting a DN off with absolutely no time.

    53   Multi-tasker over here.

    54   So I'm gonna get out while the gettin's good.

    55   Have a GREAT Tuesday, if there is such a thing.

    56   See you again.

    57   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

                                                                                                                                                                 

  • 115-101!!! Steph Curry Rocks
    the Bay!!!

     
     



    The Daily News

    1   Dazzlingly fun stuff. Woyers fans, hope you're having a ball.

    2   Ain't nothing better than being the best.

    3   I think it's time for the world to take Steph Curry seriously. I just think it is time.

    4   Keep going, fellows.

    5   Moving on, Part One: I'm tired.

    6   But it's a good kind of tired.

    7   I used to say that all the time.

    8    It's a good kind of tired. The Warriors won. I spent the entire weekend helping people and enjoying a friend's birthday party. I spent lots of time with my Dad. I got all sorts of work done. Oh, and did I mention the Warriors and Steph Curry?

    9    Yeah boy.

    10   Giants and A's fans?

    11   Yeesh.

    12   Am I allowed to say that it's a marathon, not a sprint yet?

    13   The lovely thing about baseball is that it is a lonnnnng season.

    14   You just don't want to dig too deep a hole this early. At least the A's got Cespides back, and he delivered.

    15   Baseball is a marathon. You have to rely on averages righting themselves. I think. Yeesh.

    16   Thank goodness we have the Sharks and Warriors.

    17   We are so spoiled these days.

    18   Still, my entire life being a nutso Giants' fan has always caused me to be bummed out the day after any loss.

    19   How's that?

    20   Only another fan of any sport will tell you.

    21   I love being a brainwashed sports guy.

    22   It's fun to have real Avengers in life.

    23   Ah, they aren't REAL avengers. REAL Avengers are people who help others.

    24   Anybody looking? <eyes dart back and forth>

    25   I'm just saying that to be politically correct you know. I'm very pretentious.

    26   What I was trying to say is that when we watch dazzling displays of derring-do and unnaturally super-human powers, we stand amazed.

    27    Come on dude.

    28    We marvel at athletes who are comic-heroes coming to life.

    29   It's reasonably human to lift ourselves into those sorts of feelings, and to experience what Coleridge coined a "willing suspension of disbelief."

    30   Coleridge would have been called a genius by Henry Winkler.

    31   Everybody is a genius to Henry Winkler. I'll bet when Lumpy Rutherford passed away last week, Henry Winkler said to somebody, "Frank Bank was a genius."

    32   Sidebar: I was at a birthday party the other night where the entire table gave a salute to the late Lumpy. Raised glasses and all. No lie.

    33   Henry Winkler wasn't there.

    34   Nor was Coleridge.

    35   To me, Coleridge was a crashing bore, famous mainly for coining the term, "willing suspension of disbelief," which is a cool term that would explain our fascination with sports.

    36   It's just that I would never invite Coleridge OR Henry Winkler to a  party.

    37   Here is the original quote by ol' Sam. It comes to us courtesy of phrases.org.uk:

    <Me: Origin: Willing Suspension of Disbelief>

    This term was coined by Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817 with the publication of Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions:

      "In this idea originated the plan of 'Lyrical Ballads'; in which it was agreed that my endeavours should be directed to persons or characters supernatural,
       or at least romantic, yet so as to transfer from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient to procure for these shadows of imagination
       that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith."

    38  

    39  Imagine inviting THAT guy to a party. Endeavours. Sounds like something that would be served at cocktail hour.

    40  I have to give him credit for saying what I was just saying about sports and Avengers and Henry Winkler and all.

    41  "Biographia literaria or biographical sketches of my literary life and opinions."

    42   Rallllllllly now.

    43   Who TALKS like that?

    44   <basketball buzzer>

    45   Imagine that guy on Facebook. Ten friends, and after that post, nine would have unfriended.

    46   The tenth would be Henry Winkler. "Coleridge is a genius."

    47   Aaaaaaaaaaay.

    48   Welp, we're getting into the three a.m. here, and I had a pretty amazing weekend.

    49   I'm tired, and it's Monday.

    50   But it's a good kind of  tired.

    51   One thing I'll say about Coleridge: He's good for when you have to crawl back under the sheets for a little
    more shut-eye. <yawn> I'll awaken when you finally open your other eye.

    52   Meanwhile, gottago.

    53   Fly low.

    54   Have a GREAT Monday, and We'll see you again.

    55   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

  •  

    The Daily News

    1   Ah, Friday!

    2   Hard not to love Friday.

    3   It's been a nice week.

    4   Hectic, but nice.

    5   Yesterday I was in the middle of throwing out all my classic cornball stuff when this girl in my Disney class stopped me and said in front of the entire class, "Mr. H, last year we read Romeo and Juliet and it was sort of, you know, just there. You made learning Shakespeare fun, and I want to thank you for that."

    6   I stood for a moment honored. The class gave me a huge round of applause.

    7   Naturally I coaxed more.

    8   Great moment. I just didn't feel I did anything, really.

    9   I didn't do that any more than I do this.

    10  I have been teaching for a bajillion years and I am still insecure, every single day.

    11  So applause?

    12   What'd I do?

    13   I plan things like mad, and practice, and I still slip and slosh through each day.

    14   Anybody looking?

    15   Yesterday I felt like something the cat drug in.

    16   Too much insomnia and open manholes for this Toon.

    17   Fortunately, I go in each day with one major intention: to have fun.

    18   People who are miles from the classroom are always dictating what we should do.

    19   Let me share something: when that starts happening, we begin what we Old Timehz call "teaching to the test."

    20   I remember the teachers I admired in the early days railing against teaching to the test.

    21   I sort of knew what they were talking about.

    22   About what they were talking. <yeesh>

    23   Whatever they feared has finally reached fruition.

    24   When those not in the trenches begin dictating what we should be doing in the classroom, we're all in trouble. They start demanding a thing called "summative assessments."

    25   "Summative" is newspeak for "data-based testing."

    26   For the layperson, that means more and more and more and more bubble tests. Bubble tests are those tests that you used to take where you needed a Number 2 pencil to bubble in the answers. STOP. DO NOT GO ON TO THE NEXT PAGE. Remember those? Did it ever get you a job? Did it ever help you learn how to change a diaper? Did it ever stop you from enjoying an outdoor Shakespearean evening in Carmel? Just sayin'.

    27   These people invent stuff for us to teach, throw a hodge-podge of convoluted things they feel must be taught at us, and then demand accountability and rigor.

    28

    29   What they forget is that students aren't machines.

    30   They are human beings, not science experiments.

    31   After having our students go through California High School Exit Exams, a visit by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, STAR testing, and now three weeks of Advanced Placement testing, the WASC people would like to see us giving mastery tests on every nook and cranny of our lessons.

    32   After spending a ton of time teaching my students that Shakespeare is a show, and not some irrelevant thing in a literature book, I have been asked to give a 150-question bubble test on Romeo and Juliet, just so that the WASC people have a record that we are measuring the learning through data.

    33   These students are so burnt out that their faces are literally morphing. They look like exhausted puppies.

    34   It all sounds good on paper, and the people in the ivory towers are all doing a grand job of protecting their phony-baloney jobs, but on a human level, I see it all as an enormous failure, and it is coming down from the education gods who haven't taught in centuries.

    35   I defer to my own ability as a professional to know what is best for my students.

    36   I believe that if I reach the standards, but do it in a way that involves fun, laughter, music, friends, groups, and celebration, that the learning will naturally take place.

    37   I also believe that teaching grammar is an essential. But grammar takes a LOT of time if one takes it seriously, and I do.

    38   I hammer that stuff on the students. I should never see a student leave my class saying things like, "I seen these two dudes..."

    39   Or not realizing that "a lot" is two words.

    40   So all of this stuff is demanded of us, but then we have weeks and weeks of testing, all of which prevents us from teaching what we need to teach.

    41   Does this all make any sense?

    42    It happens in all businesses.

    43   Somehow people in charge feel that the people in the trenches need more meetings, which really serve to exhaust people and bash their morale to smithereens.

    44   I just take in a breath and never fail to exhale.

    45   What is tough is that I know more about education than most other people who are telling me what to do because I have LIVED it passionately. For what seems centuries.

    46    And trust me, I'm not some old geezer set in his ways. I just know from experience how to reach students.

    47   I am a better teacher now than I have ever been, and I am STILL insecure, every single day.

    48   But I know that I am right in loving Shakespeare, for example, and allowing my love for the language to inspire my students.

    49   I am also thoroughly convinced that if I suddenly dump a bubble test with 150 questions on my students, that they will no longer see Shakespeare as incredibly entertaining art,
    but potentially as a subject that they will choose to hate for the rest of their lives.

    50   As John Miller, the Giants' venerable announcer once put it, "IMHO."

    51   In my humble opinion.

    52   Man.

    53   I feel like some guy in a war bunker telegraphing things behind enemy lines.

    54   "O Captain, my Captain!"

    55   Anybody looking?

    56   I'm going to continue to close my doors and kick ass with my students.

    57   Know why?

    58   Because I know it works. And they need to be set free from all of this idiotic testing that is devouring their minds and souls.

    59   Just another day in the life.

    60   Thanks for listening.

    61   Gottago.

    62   Be seein' ya. Hope I still have a job a' Monday.

    63   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington




  • The Daily News

    1   I'm pretty sure that yesterday was 12-Year-Olds-Driving-Cars Day.

    2   It all began with my ride to work.

    3   I saw this monster truck coming up behind me in my rear view.

    4   I naturally thought it was a redneck. Who wouldn't?

    5   I did my mantra that I do in situations like this.

    6   I thought to myself, "Where ya goin'? See you at the Light." Moron alert. No shortage.

    7    Anybody looking?

    8    I always say that when I see a dangerous driver, especially one who is young and full of piss and vinegar. I again looked into my rear view mirror at the miscreant.. He descended on me at an alarming rate.

    9    He pulled up on my right.

    10  I expected to look over and see some offshoot of Larry- the-Cable Guy grinding it down the road.

    11   Instead, I looked over and saw a kid who must have been at most twelve at the helm. He sported some modern version of a tractor hat.

    12   "Must be some sort of holiday," I thought to myself.

    13   The guy had a peahead.

    14   Dude looked  TWELVE to me. Huge ears. Pea head. What is a fellow to say?

    15   This happened around two more times yesterday.

    16    I  must admit something.

    17   I have this thing that any time I see an idiot doing something idiotic, that I absolutely MUST see what he looks like.

    18   This is something I learned a long time ago. Tailgater? I sometimes speed up just to get a gander. As soon as they are next to me, I look over, and when they look back at me I think to myself, "So THAT's what an idiot looks like!"

    19   The second idiot arrived at a stop sign to my right after I was already stopped.

    20   Y
    ou've probably seen the guy in your own neighborhood. All-black-beat-up sedan with no hubbies. Rusty black rims. Dents.

    21   The guy stopped, looked at me, and took the right-of-way.

    22    He looked at me like I was crazy. His face looked like a goose.

    23   The guy was twelve. I swear to you. He could not have been a year older. He zoomed off.

    24   This was in a reasonably peaceful neighborhood, over by Penitencia Creek headed toward Piedmont Road.

    24   I turned left, and this grey car was coming into my lane and swerved at the last second.

    25   I looked over to see what the idiot looked like.

    27   Dude must have been a seventh grader. He looked like he just got whooped in a game of tether ball.

    28   I swear to you.

    29   Three morons in a row, all of them driving dangerously, all of them under thirteen. At least they all three looked under thirteen.

    30   I imagine they had to be old enough to be driving, but I guess as you age, kids seem to look younger and younger.

    31   Heck, my bank clerk looks thirteen to me.

    32   Funny our perspective of age.

    33   I remember looking at my parents' yearbooks when I was young and thinking, "Whoa! Teenagers looked like they were thirty when my parents were young!"

    34   But if you go back to your old high school after six or seven years, the freshmen always seem to have shrunk since you were in school.

    35   It's all perspective.

    36   Getting older is glorious, isn't it?

    37   Moving on, Part 1: Thursday.

    38   I like Thursdays, because it means I am as far away from having to go to meetings as possible.

    39   Wednesdays are meeting days, and yesterday's meeting could have been a disaster.

    40   The trouble is, people who run meetings want to bring up the bad stuff at the end. I don't blame them. If you bring up the bad stuff at the
    beginning you get a bunch of sour, angry people getting into arguments on how things should be.

    41   I'm a bit different. I prefer getting the ugly stuff over fast, and I always hope that there will be that one person who could put the fire out early.

    42   We had our WASC report to discuss. That is one huge elephant sitting in the room.

    43   That's the report from the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the visiting team that continues to stress our school year in and year out.

    44   Nobody wants to touch it, but we all have to deal with it.

    45   I absolutely hated the thought of going, but I know that professionally, that was what I should do.

    46   I won't go into details, but I will simply say that I really love Thursdays, because Wednesdays are a weekly nightmare. I dread every single Wednesday.

    47   I usually talk here about how Tuesdays should be eliminated as a day of the week, but it isn't because I'm against Tuesdays per se.

    48   It is because we know going in that Mondays are tough. If you have lived long enough, you know that you should spend some time on Sunday doing something having to do with work so that Monday doesn't throw you into an abyss. It's Tuesdays that are tricky. The ability to conquer a Monday should be a mandatory class when you are in high school.

    49  A lot of people know this and think, "Whew! I got through Monday!" only to wake up on Tuesday morning and scream, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" If Tuesday were eliminated then Wednesday would be Tuesday, and you kill two birds, as they say. You might as well have everything suck on the same day.

    50  Something like that. If I were President of the United States, one of my first moves would be the Saying-Good-bye-to Tuesday initiative. It would stop people from going zany. Everyone would be more peaceful and mannerly.

    51   I would also have some sort of initiative that would raise the age at which you could get a drivers' license. I'd raise it to twenty. Part of the initiative would be that people who look twelve should be denied licenses altogether.

    52   God I've become crotchety.

    53   It's fun. I swear to you. I say most things in jest, but I don't care who agrees or disagrees. Oh, I don't say them at meetings.

    54   Just prolongs the meetings. The best thing to do at a meeting is to shut up.

    55   Anybody looking?

    56   It's well into the four a.m.

    57   I gottago before I say something I don't wanna. Yeesh. I better go.

    58   See you again. Have a GREAT Thursday!

    59   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

  • WARRIORS AND SHARKS!!! 
    BAY AREA SPORTS ROCK!!!




     
    The Daily News

    1    WOW!!! Sensational games!!! AND the Warriors will have home court advantage. They got one out of town against the best home team. That's what you DO!!! Sharks doing it again!!! You gotta love Bay Area Sports these days. Congrats to both teams and to the fans. Now let's win it!!!

    2    Moving on, Part One: <Note:I wrote most of the DN yesterday afternoon to the idiocy of computer changes.> I'm writing today's DN sans glasses. I know what you think.

    3    You're thinking, "Just wait 'til the first apostrophe; HE'LL get his."

    4    I made it through the first apostrophe, but I feel like Ma Kettle, who knew the fine art of apostrophe usage.

    5    Nevermind. <sigh no more.>

    6    I can already see that I am on some old jalopy headed for some country road that has dusty curves and treacherous yet splendorous views.

    7    Great challenge. Number eight just disappeared on me, dag nabbit!

    8    W-w-whoops. Wear'd number eight go? Oh, there y'arr ya little rascal. Now where's m' glasses?

    9    Oh, that's right. My challenge is to write this with no regard to glasses.

    10   <basketball buzzer>

    11    Thank goodness for Joe-the-Bear.

    12    He metaphysically, and I swear to you it is true, sent the message to me to put my glasses back on and to stop trying to be a hero.

    13    I must needs listen to Joe-the-Bear.

    14    The fellow has bear swag.

    15     I think the trouble I am experiencing is mathematical. The distance from the screen to my eyes > my ability to think outside the box.

    16    Here is yet another theorem: ANYTHING > my ability to think outside the box.

    17    A truer word was never said.

    18    Is that from Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth?

    19    I believe so.

    20    Where on Earth is all this stuff headed?

    21    I should say Rite-Aid, just off the top of me head.

    24    I find that Rite-Aid somehow makes the contrast to philosophy and distances of eyes-to-screen palpable. It also sells reading glasses.

    25     I feel like a motorcycle gangsta who can't spark his machine.

    26    But I know I'm gangsta, and can do this..

    27    I think.

    28    I'm actually having a lot of fun trying to write this without glasses.

    29   To go to another analogy, it's like writing the DN while playing Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey.

    30   Sugar and cupcakes.

    31   Goodness knows just what might land here.

    32   It's sort of fun, because I'm still doing it.

    33   I feel like it's my birthday, only instead of my eight-hundredth, it's my fourth.

    34   Party hats, blowers, and Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey.

    35   Are we having fun?

    36   The whole concept of being a kid and having a birthday party is sugar-coated fun.

    37   Moving on, Part One: Anybody looking?

    38   It's sort of charming in a way, because once I turned thirty I never wanted to have another birthday party ever.

    39   At the time, and what a time it was, I was working with a band on a musical. We rocked and rollicked every day at rehearsal.

    40   On my thirtieth birthday, they knew. They suddenly dropped their instruments and seized me.

    41   They wrestled me down and spanked me thirty times.

    42    That's what rock bands do. Sounds rowdy and fun, right? <second basketball buzzer>

    43    When I got home my butt had turned beet red. Or beat red, if we're going to talk rock bands and drummers.

    44   I literally couldn't sit down. Thirty whacks by a crazed rock band. Those are Metallica whacks. Rock n' Roll dudes know how to hurt a fellow.

    45   I felt like Roger Rabbit. I was a Toon. It hurt without words.

    46   Throbbingly painful.

    47   I haven't publicly celebrated a birthday since. Family, yes. But I keep it quiet.

    48    I don't want another whooping.

    49    Moving on, Part Two: I have a smudge on my glasses.

    50    Sayyyyy.

    51   I thought I wasn't supposed to be using my glasses.

    51   Oh...I'm not.

    52   I was just...um...winding down here.

    52   Wouldn't want to anger anyone, right?

    53   Especially a goofy rock band named Daffy and the Ducks.

    54   I was Daff.

    55   The Ducks are still around, and might be hovering in silence waiting for a second attack.

    56   Won't happen. They're almost as old as I.

    57   Ah, we're all eternally young.

    58   This was fun. It was like Pee-Wee golf fun, which is what miniature golf used to be called, back in the day.

    59   Loves me some back in the day, to put it in Facebookspeak.

    60   Moving on, Part Three: Once again, huge shout-outs to the Warriors, Sharks, and all our loyal fans. Stunning games. I'm still reeling.  Bay Area sports!!! Let's DO this!!!

    61   I gottago.


    63   See you again.

    64   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington


  • The Daily News
    1   "Hey Mr. Harrington, you look dapper today."

    2   Haha.

    3   Dapper.

    4   Same guy that asked me a few weeks ago, "Mr. Harrington, may I go to the room at where I may rest?"

    5   I'm sure he was buttering me up for the same request, but when I looked up, he just pointed with his thumb, like a hitchhiker with a secret.

    6   Always at the beginning of the period.

    7   Wise lad.

    8   I let him.

    9   He's a guy from my Disney class.

    10  They're a class that is all ears and braces.

    11   Delightful group. You don't always get an absolute perfect class.

    12   There's always some guy who will walk in front of you mid-lecture and try the thumb action.

    13   I still nod, but can you imagine?

    14   The difference between manners and no manners is striking sometimes.

    15   Don't get me going.

    16   Anybody looking?

    17   I must say I DID look pretty dapper yesterday. I had swag. We all have those days.

    18   My colors all somehow matched, even though I dressed in a tornado of darkness.

    19   Sometimes you luck out.

    20   Other times it looks like your window was open during a tornado and everything flew off the clothesline and onto your body.

    21   Yesterday I wound up looking like some sort of dandy gangsta from the 'thirties.

    22   My tie somehow matched my shirt, even though it was an offshoot of light green, which you wouldn't think would look good.

    23    My tie yesterday had a sort of light red with the same offshoot of light green somehow running through it.

    24   None of it was too intentional.

    25   I did most of it on one foot with one eye open.

    26   You know how you do.

    27   And I wore the Bogart.

    28   That's my Humphrey Bogart hat, the one that prompted one kid to say, "Hey nice fedora!"

    29   "Thanks. I'm gangsta!"

    30   Smiles.

    31   Fedora. That sounds like something an old brown shoe like me would wear.

    32   I looked like the modern, color version of any mug walking around in a thirties' picture.

    33   I was sort an animated historical figure, only in modern times. No white shirt. Nope.

    34   Offshoot of green, with slight red and offshoot of green tie.

    35   And the Bogart.

    36   If I look back on old pictures of myself, I will see that sort of trend even when I was just a little guy.

    37   My Mom once got me a Bat Masterson costume for Halloween, complete with the cane that unscrews so that if I wanted to,
    I could have hidden a gun.

    38   Bat Masterson was this old television show that had yet another fastest gun in the West.

    39   His gimmick was that he always looked dapper.

    40   Maybe that's why I smiled when that student said that.

    41   Dude.

    42   It's 2013.

    43   Nobody uses a word like "dapper" anymore.

    44   In fact, most students have no idea as to what a "dude" is.

    45   They don't know.

    46   As I recall, a dude is a guy from the East Coast who comes out west and tries to dress like a cowboy, but who is
    way too fastidious. He doesn't have the rawhide-nature of real cowpokes.

    47   Sadly, it has turned into some weird salutation that has become a permanent part of our modern repartee. More's the pity.

    48   I just loved in old movies when a dude would walk into a saloon, only to be bullied by beaten down badgers and weasels
    who used to be gunslingers.

    49   The guy would usually be dressed to the nines, only in pretty cowboy clothes.

    50   And he would usually be able to waste the bullies with a lightning-quick gun.

    51   That repeating premise always made for entertaining television.

    52   Dude.

    53   I think I'm going to be dapper today too.

    54   My shirt has square buttons.

    55   They are gold. It is a light blue and light gold shirt.

    56   I'm accenting it with a light red and tie with tiny blue squares that are raining down.

    57   Even though it's going to be a bazillion degrees, I'm going to wear a square-shouldered tuxedo jacket.

    58   It's slightly blue.

    59   And my Bogart. It will be angled just so.

    60   So I gottago.

    61   I look like quicksilver today.

    62   Dapper.

    63   Gangsta.

    64   Have a GREAT Tuesday.

    65   See you again.

    66   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington



  • The Daily News
    1   Happy Mondeeeeeeee!

    2   I'm excited to be back.

    3   We return to somewhat normalcy today.

    4   After almost a month of massive stress, our school returns to a week of actual learning without visiting teams, testing days, grade deadlines, or weird schedules.

    5   I won't mention Spring Break, because it is a blur.

    6   During that period of time, I also lost a laptop and somehow inherited this nightmare called Windows 8.

    7   Yeesh.

    8   I guess sometimes life has to knock you around a little.

    9   Or a lot.

    10  I decided I would try to conquer Windows 8.

    11  If you haven't had the pleasure, it is one of the most intrusive things anyone trying to live on the Internet could go through.

    12  The changes are pretty radical.

    13   They're based on cell phones, and doing two-finger enlargements.

    14   Touch screen concepts on a touchpad.

    15   Last week I tried writing the DN on this nonsense and the fonts suddenly went to size one.

    16   If you know me, you know I'm not a size one.

    17   It's a handy-dandy thing if you have a lot of time on your hands.

    18   It's a nightmare if you're multi-tasking, which I now do on a daily basis.

    19   Fortunately, I have a Geek squad from Best Buy. They are a King's army.

    20   I put Microsoft Office into this ordeal the other day.

    21   Well, I tried to, and ultimately succeeded.

    22   I had to go through an act of Congress to install it, and to pay for it.

    23   They wanted me to remember some password I gave them in 2007.

    24   Dude.

    25   2007 was six years ago.

    26   They also want a new password. It has to have eight characters. Two have to be from West Virginia. One has to have some sort of loop. A third has to be capitalized. A fourth needs to be anything Arabic.

    27

    28   Then they made me try to imitate some cryptic group of letters like CyBrkLmWff. They had a cute little thing that said something like, "We just want to make sure you're not a robot."

    29   A robot would have done it in one shot.

    30   I kept typing in whatever I thought it said.

    31   Each time it said, "Nope." I was afraid that if I wrote some pixie's name backwards, that I might get hurled into the fifth dimension.

    32    I found myself yelling at my puter.

    33    I was saying stuff like, "Um...I'd like to PAY you now. Would that be okay?"

    34   Nevermind.

    35   I actually think I conquered the stuff though.

    36   Technology isn't going to back down. This much I know. I embrace it, and I hope to use the improvements to my advantage.

    37   Anybody looking?

    38   Moving on, Part One: I think I conquered Xanga. I think.

    39   I didn't. I had a Geek do it. I paid extra to have an army of Geeks.

    40   I also figured out how to make the fonts do my bidding.

    41   Sort of.

    42   Xanga insists on changing fonts and on NOT posting pictures.

    43   It's sort of like trying to paint a painting but the paint becomes Alice-in-Wonderland alive and refuses to turn the colors you want it to.

    44   You push a button on a computer, and it is supposed to do what you want it to do.

    45   I think computers are getting SO intelligent that they are developing attitude.

    46   Like, "No, I don't wanna do Comic Sans anymore. That's Old Skool."

    47   My old laptop is on my workbench in a straight jacket.

    48   I still have it on, even though it refuses to work.

    49   I have a few cherished pictures I would like to pull out of the thing, but it hovers in a corner like a madman going through withdrawals.

    50   I'm waiting for it to blow up or something.

    51   Meanwhile, I think I have somewhat a handle on Windows 8, even though its functions are irritating.

    52   I disabled a lot of their stuff. Anything involving vertical or horizontal movement on the touchpad has been disabled.

    53   The Alice-in-Wonderland enlarging and shrinking is gone. Who NEEDS that? Some Geek must have thought it was a dandy idea, I imagine.

    54   AnywayZ...

    55   I think the DN is safe. I have no control over the artistic integrity of it any longer, and it is a tad annoying.

    56   It will still land on your porch, but it will never look the way it looked.

    57   I'm not going to battle it too much.

    58   I write this in the middle of the night. Then I coast off to sleep.

    59   I'm a fan of normalcy.

    60   Hopefully we have that back.

    61   Have a great Mondeeeeee!!!

    62   See you again.

    63   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington













  •  
     



    The Daily News

    1 It's FRIDEEEEEE!!!!!!!

    2  Thanks you. Just...thank you.

    3   Zesty week.

    4   One of the toughest, I might say.

    5   Too much happening even to think.

    6   Triumphant.

    7   Students loved the Lurhman version of Romeo and Juliet.

    8   Most teachers stay WAY away from that one.

    9   In many ways, I can see why.

    10  But that becomes shying away just because it doesn't follow the original script.

    11  My answer to that is this: Who does?

    12  Given its raw script, Romeo and Juliet is ridiculous, and has put many demands on many directors. A lot of the script has difficulties.

    13   For example, when Romeo goes to Juliet's room after having killed Tybalt, how does he get past the Watch? Why is Juliet upset about the murder of her cousin, but when Romeo shows up, why doesn't she hit him over the head with a frying pan?

    14   After Romeo's murder of Tybalt, why does Friar Laurence send Romeo into that situation? The kid is suicidal the entire play.

    15   Oy.

    16   Why is Juliet thirteen? That's a pretty big elephant sitting in that room.

    17   Meh.

    18   These were questions that were the chat of the town in most of my classes.

    19   Good darned questions, if you ask me.

    20   I just kept pausing the film and telling them what took place in the script.

    21   The interesting thing about art is that it ever evolves.

    22   Paintings by the masters would take on a different perspective the second one would put a frame on them.

    23   Where they would hang would also alter the original artist's intentions.

    24   And so it goes with Romeo and Juliet.

    25   Purists would like to see it be performed untouched.

    26   The very nature of its creation prevents that.

    27   What eventually comes down the pike after over four hundred years looks nothing like the first performance, I can guarantee you that one.

    28   Art changes. That's part of what makes it art.

    29   If you write a play, it will never look the way you want it to look, even if you direct it.

    30   If you paint a painting, it might look perfect on your easel, but it might look out of place in a castle, or in a documentary.

    31   There is no such thing as pure art.

    32   The world will distort any piece, no matter how pure.

    33   A good artist know this.

    34   Did Lurhman mar Romeo and Juliet beyond recognition?

    35   Perhaps.

    36   But we might also share an audience's angst in 1596 or 1597 that the mail that tells Romeo that Juliet is not dead will never be delivered.

    37   Originally, it was because the mail deliverer was sequestered in a town that had been exposed to the Plague.

    38   There is no trace of that in either of the two most famous films.

    39    In both films, the mail not being delivered on time gets students out of their seats.

    40   It's not unlike a Korean drama.

    41   I remember vividly the first time I saw a Korean drama.

    42   I looked at the television and said, "What the hell is this?"
     
    43   I glanced at it, read some of the subtitles, and blew it off.

    44   I shook my head and went into the kitchen. I kept going back out to the living room, somewhat riveted.

    45   Twenty minutes later I said, "Who WATCHES this stuff?"

    46   An hour later I was on my feet yelling at the teevee, "TELL HIMMMMMM!!!"

    47   Ah, works of art.

    48   How do we measure?

    49   All I know is that my students were all over each other when Clare Danes opened her eyes during Romeo's suicide.

    50   Art borrowed from art. It was all fake. It was all controlled. It was all not believable.

    51   And suddenly each class was screaming, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

    52   And an old fool of a teacher laughed, and loved watching them leave the room while the credits rolled, staring in absolute disbelief. One student said, "Korean dramas are awesome, but this is like a Korean drama with  poetry, imagery, rhythm, rhyme, and history!"

    53   One teacher smiled at all of that.

    54   Great way to end the week.

    55   They get it. There are good days.

    56   Just thought I'd share.
     
    57   Have a GREAT weekend.

    58   See you again.

    59   Peace.

    ~H~

    www.xanga.com/bharrington

Recent Posts

Recent Comments

Categories