• goodbadi

    Students on Personal Utopia/Dystopia

    September 14, 2010

    Excerpts from student quickwrites in resonse to the question “How is your life utopic or dystopic?”:

    ….My life is utopic cause we have Freedoms. We have cops to pretect us from the bad people. The state of Virginia has armed forces to fight against other countries and states.

    ….My life really isn’t utopic, but at least I have food, shelter, and the ability to attend school. But my life is mainly distopic, wich is saw to by … my stepdad whom I don’t like him…. He’s even thinking about getting rid of my cat, the closest thing I have to a friend at home.

    ….My life is mostly dystopic because I do chores all the time and I never have to time in my own utopic world thinking thinking thinking my dystopic world look like the devils utopia I just want to throw up my utopic life is miles of video games 20 famous soccer fileds and a pizza stand and that is all folks

    ….My family is not dystopic because we don’t have a diese and our house is not overcrowded. We usally don’t have human misery.

    ….My life is both utopic and dystopic. It is utopic when we have food on the table and we talk all night. It’s dystopic because my grandma sick and we are pooor like a hobo but I dream of a world that the redskins go 16-0 and my grandma plays football….

    ….My life is utopic because my family goes on a lot of family trips. We go to a lot of football games we go to Dominos every friday we order chinese on Mondays…and when my family agrees on something it happens. My life is dystopic when I get grounded and something gets tooken away, when I get sick because I can’t go outside and play basketball, when someone in my family dies because we were really close, or when I sometimes don’t get the movie CD or Book I want


    ….My life is Dystopic because I don’t always get what I want. Right now I really want a new Ipod cover but my mom says no because she thinks my old one is just fine but in a Utopic world I would have a million new Ipod covers 3 in every color. Plus I don’t always get along with some people. We may disagree on some opinions and get into an arguement or I may not like the way they behave and stare at them angrily from behind

    ….My life is a Utopic….I can’t think of anything. Oh!! Friends!!! Girlfriend. Esspeshialy Girlfriend….IDK!….Lady GaGa!!….

    ….In the fall it is totaly distopic….Don’t have any time to eat or do home work. But in the winter it is almost Utopic playing in the snow drinking hot chocolate by the fire place watching family Guy with my whole family. We are snowed in and on christmas break that is awesome.
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    Shameless Commerce: Coming Soon

    September 14, 2010
    Remember that online store that gives me stuff to review? Well, that business, CSN Stores, “has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from cheap bedroom furniture to fantastic fitness equipment to cookware.”

    I’ll be accessing one of those many stores in the next few days to select yet another reviewable item of coolness. Are we feeling giddy, yet?
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  • goodbadi

    Revelation of Self Righteousness

    September 11, 2010

    At the supper table this evening I referred to the man at the helm of the recent Koran-burning threat as an “idiot.” (I’d contemplated the more-accurate “fool,” or the watered-down “man of foolish action,” but chose to wax eloquent in the common instead.)

    “Hey, I don’t like it when you say that about people,” M said.

    “Well, then,” I said, “I’ll just say he has a I.D.10-T problem.”

    M frowned.

    “How would you describe him, then?” I asked.

    She could do nothing but chuckle.

    Not unrelated was the wisdom I gained today from a colleague of mine who can’t keep himself from sharing it with me whenever he gets a chance:

    “I used to get mad at people who did bad stuff,” he said. “I don’t anymore, though. It’s just interesting. And besides, if we hate all the bad people, soon we’ll be hating ourselves, too.”

    By the way, remember my librarian who forwarded that email about wearing blue on Fridays in honor of Jesus and the GI’s? I kept my eyes open today, from above my green shirt, and noticed that she was in white.

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    Starbucks? Not if I Can Choose

    September 4, 2010

    Tired of feeling sleepy in the afternoons, I have developed an antidote: milk, instant coffee to taste, and chocolate-flavored syrup to taste, all shaken together in a nice little glass bottle and chilled.

    A note on the bottle: I have two of them (for alternating days, I guess) that I bought once at a convenience store when I was traveling. I could have paid $2.71 for one bottle–all I really wanted–but if I bought two, it was only $4.00 total. So I bought two, and neither tasted very good. Or just good, even.

    Phooey on expensive Starbucks drinks! My homemade concoction is way satisfyinger.

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    Inland Oil Catastrophe Spreading

    August 12, 2010

    As suggested in Millions Of Barrels Of Oil Safely Reach Port In Major Environmental Catastrophe, we’ve got problems. (Thanks to The Freakwenter for the heads up.)

    And I confess: While I did walk across the street this morning to a lunchtime restaurant meeting, on the way back to school I gladly accepted a ride in a gasoline-powered vehicle.

    And I confess more: I am the son of a man who at his church is a “creation care advocate” and who recently deviated from his normal practice of relocating live-trapped groundhogs (he usually pushes the loaded trap in a wheelbarrow a mile back a dirt road and then releases the poor critter) and instead drove the trap in his car to the release site and back. In the week after my dad told this story about himself in church–a story he prefaced by mentioning the fact that he hadn’t really ever done anything as “creation care advocate”–he learned that a woman at church later said that she “just can’t get in the car anymore without remembering that story.”

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    History

    August 8, 2010

    Mark Twain is believed to have noted, “History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme”; others have said that “if there’s one thing we’ve learned from history, it’s that we haven’t learned from history.”

    Which brings me to my own history of repetitive patterns of high-level wants list making. Remember that not too long ago I said that the projects I’m itching to do around the house would cost over a hundred grand? Well, check this list out, from 1987, when I was nine (click on the photo to enlarge it):

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    Shameless Commerce: Review of Rolling Duffel

    August 7, 2010

    It’s perfect for what I needed.

    See, being a small-time gigging musician requires lots odds and ends aside from instruments, mic and speaker stands, speakers, monitors, and the sound system itself: speaker cables, monitor cables, guitar cables, microphone cables, microphones, guitar effects pedals, extra guitar strings, extra guitar pickups, a power strip, an extension cord, the sound system power cord, etc.

    Before today, I carried all of these odds and ends in multiple examples of small luggage. But toting about three bags was getting old, so I did what any frugal musician would do: I obtained a free duffel bag for reviewing right here and now.

    And what a bag it is; it holds all those little things my band’s little musical setup needs.

    Now, I have not yet done more than pack it, so I’m not sure how it will hold up under the rigor of the minimal gigging my band finds. As it all looks now, though, every last detail of it seems appropriate and well-designed, from the wheels on one end (just unzip the little thing on the other end of the bag, and extend the handle for pulling it along) to the hefty, smooth zippers to the many pockets to the numerous, handy handles.

    And I can’t wait to use it live–I’m looking forward to feeling professional, sleek, chic, chivalrous, and otherwise like someone to be noticed (whether or not my music renders me deserving), what with my brand spanking new, black, stylish rolling duffel, a Skyway Sigma 2 Rolling Gear Bag.

    Rock–and roll–on!

    Before actually going out and purchasing any goodbadi-reviewed item, please email goodbadiblog@gmail.com to confirm that the reviewed item’s features include longevity.

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