First things first: if you don’t care about country music, don’t read this. You won’t get half the references, and chances are you’ve got something more important to do.

In a fist fight between these two country superstars, who would win?

The contenders:
Kenny Chesney, known for his beach bum style songs about taking it easy and laying in the sun; and for his methods of making teenaged girls swoon at his heartfelt lyrics and low slung cowboy hat (like a pansy dwight yoakam)

Taylor Swift, known for her high school style songs about tears, guitars, and pyromania; and for making teenaged girls swoon at her heartfelt lyrics that they can identify with (like a grown up miley cyrus)

Now, I will be completely honest, I’m entering this with a bit of a bias. I really don’t like Kenny Chesney’s music, there’s no energy to it, no get up ‘n go. It’s like a pot smoker’s country music. Tooootaalllyyyy smooooove. Anyway, that aside, what set me off wondering about what some might think is a mismatch? Chesney’s song “Out Last Night.” We’re going to stack it up against Swift’s “Picture to Burn” to see who would win.

First let’s talk tempo…Picture to Burn has some energy…one actually believes if one had the specific picture, and the song were on, the picture might actually burst into flames. That’s how pissed off she is, and it is reflected by the tempo, very (pardon the pun) swift.

The tempo in Out last night? If Chesney wanted it to seem like they went to a bar and ordered shirley temples, then sure, the tempo makes sense. This is not a tempo that would make one think fondly of going out the night before.

Singer’s identity is next on the list. Chesney’s persona? Who knows. Apparently he’s not secure enough in his skin to actually settle on one (think redneck and toby keith, drunkard and hank williams sr, stoner and willie nelson, etc. etc.) so there’s no identification for the listener. Even, as he says it in the song:
I was a doctor, a lawyer, a senator’s son
Brad Pitt’s brother and a man on the run
Anything I thought would get the job done
Some advice for Chesney the next time he goes out: don’t think. Women folk want someone who’s stable.

Taylor Swift’s identity in Picture to Burn is pretty much summed up as follows: very pissed off high school girl. And she’s got a match. I’m frightened.

Moving right along, let’s talk about potential backups that each could bring to a match of fisticuffs. Who does Chesney have watching his back? Oh, it’s his good friend Jimmy! Who apparently is already involved “in a fist fight out by the car.” Great friend you are Kenny, letting your buddy get into a fight without backing him up, and while you’re “Getting to know everybody and their mother.” For shame, I am sure my mother wants nothing to do with you and your schizoid identity crisis!

Who could Taylor Swift bring in to a fight? Her father. As she puts it, “And if you come around saying’ sorry to me/My daddy’s going to show you how sorry you’ll be.” If you’re not frightened, consider this: Her father lets her run around school making threats and burning shit. While conceivably not a perfect parent, he probably could kick some ass if she doesn’t burn it first.

Finally, what are the plans for the future from each artist? Chesney’s plans are to go out again tonight, in all probability to have a couple virgin strawberry daiquiris before he calls it a night. Chesney is an insult to drunks everywhere. Swift, on the other hand, plans on going out with all this guy’s best friends. Meh. Maybe this one’s too close to call.

One last note on Chesney’s out last night, where the hell was he drinking? “girls from Argentina and Arkansas,Maine, Alabama and Panama…” Where is that? The Copacabana!?!? Was one of them named Lola?

Based on just these two songs, I believe a shrill, angry, shrieking picture burning high school girl could beat the crap out of a multiple personality disordered pussy who lets his friend get into a fistfight without him.

That’s why Taylor Swift could beat up Kenny Chesney.

Of course, I could be taking Chesney’s song all wrong…if he made a song to make listeners feel like they had a horrible hangover and wanted to vomit, then I salute him…he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

that one of the few ways to make coconut chicken curry better is to have it as leftovers.

mmm…with leftover chapatis too.

to the weekend when you’ve got to run to three different stores to find a plunger.

Vons and Long Drugs do not stock plungers, and DoIt Best hardware was the only one open this morning at 7:30.

contrary to what our vice president claimed today, not every day is earth day. Some days are presidents day, july 4th, and my birthday to name a few different ones.

I’m just saying.

but all in all, they’ve been good. Went camping on saturday night, have almost gotten the camp pack down to perfection with the items needed in it (dishes, coffee, extra shirt, extra garbage bag, matches, etc. etc.), so it sits in my trunk nicely next to the tent and the camp chair. It’s good times.

Haven’t done much of note other than that though. I do have a post upcoming on why I believe taylor swift could quite probably beat the living tar out of kenny chesney, maybe tomorrow.

now the disappointment sets in.

I did the best I could, so now the wait begins.

uff da.

I’m a bit stressed. I had a horrible dream last night about the skin on milly’s jaw coming undone, so it was just hanging there and we had to take her to the vet a couple different times to try and get it fixed, and it was a hullaballoo. Then I woke up at 2:30 after that dream and was up until roughly 4:30 thinking about the teaching demo for the interview in roughly 3.5 hours(from now) and what I was going to say, and whether they’d laugh at any of my witty jokes, and nonsense like that. Then I woke up at 6:30, and decided to get up and get things together for the interview.

It’s been switched around twice already, originally supposed to be 8:45 yesterday, then 5pm on monday, finally it got moved to 1:15 today. That may have something to do with the general unease, that and the fact that I really need this teaching thing that I’m doing to be a full time job.

I won’t find out until tomorrow evening if I made it to the Friday interviewing, and then it’s another long night tomorrow.

I’d play video games, but my focus is completely shot right now…I’d probably lose.

This is the most wound up I’ve been over a job interview ever.

Here’s how worked up I am: I even shined my shoes last night. Something I haven’t done in the last…4 years?

now I’ve got a couple weeks before my committee has changes for me.

first time in 2 years that I don’t have a paper hanging over my head. first time in 23 years that I am not involved as a student in a school. It feels really good.

I love having this haxxored router hooked up to my win98 laptop…full speed internet on a win98 2001 machine w/o wireless. It is horrendously helpful for the dissertation. No foolies.

He gave me the patience to finish up this dissertation. Finished this afternoon, first draft done. We’re looking at 256 pages right now, probably be closer to 230 once editing is completed.

done done done done done done done!

DONE!

Editing begins tomorrow.

So I was running late for some reason to one of Dr. Donovan’s classes in undergrad, and when I did get there, I had like 15 minutes to take the final exam. You had 20 questions on one sheet, and an essay on the second, and I got through about half of it. The big problem was it had to be written out by hand, though computers were right there that we could use. What a horrible dream.

And on a completely unrelated note, I think I’m going to allow my students the option of typing their final.

those strings of digits and numbers up there won’t mean much to you, but they’ll probably help some poor soul out there figure out what the deuce is wrong with their workaround and save them about $100.

I followed the instructions out there on a couple pages, and had it all working…with my old laptop. No matter what settings I put on the bridged router or the ‘net router, nothing on earth would make the 360 recognize it was hooked in and basically online. Let me repeat this for the search engines and the poor schmucks out there like me: THe PC worked, the LAPTOP WORKED, but the Xbox 360 did not.

Now, I’m not one to screw around with something that is more or less working, and my patience level is exceedingly low. So I’m not touching ports at all. I did try static IPs, set up a DMZ, all that good stuff, but no go. Finally, I decided, what the hell. I was using DD-WRT v24 micro generic release with my Linksys Wrt54GS v5, and it wasn’t flying. So I figured, what’s the harm and I reset it to v23 generic micro version.

It works like a charm. If you’ve got the same setup that I have, a 360, a Linksys WRT54GS v.5, an aversion to spending $100, a mild case of do-it-yourself, and about an hour…I suggest you do what I did and haxxor your router. Just make sure you do the version 23, not 24.

It’s good times.

is 5 pages.

that is all.

In addition, dad and I fixed the fridge door this morning and I saw them off, I worked 5 hours, and watched the swedish vampire flick let the right one in.

been a hell of a day.