Ketchup

This is awesome. I wish I either
owned this costume or that
my face was Photoshopped
in place of this guy.

I'm very behind. Hence, I need to CATCH UP. See? This is what an English degree gets you: a stranglehold on puns.

Frosh
Monday, September 12 - I assigned your newspaper project. This is a big deal assignment, done in groups, where the goal is to create a newspaper from the point of view of the animals from Animal Farm. The newspaper could either be an official publication under the watchful eye of Napoleon, or it could be an underground newspaper meant to subvert the reign of the pigs. Either way, it has four sections and each person in your group is responsible for at least two articles. However your groups decides to lay it out in terms of size and page length is up to you. This is a chance to be creative and make something that looks visually interesting and exciting, so here's hoping you all do that.

Tuesday, September 13 - While I was gone at a district conference, you used the day to work on the newspaper project.

Wednesday, September 14 - Lather, rinse, and repeat, since the conference was two days long.

Thursday, September 15 - We revised Jane Schaffer-style chunks in class, making sure that you had a concrete detail sentence followed by two commentary sentences. You took what we did in class and created two more chunks based on the characters about which you had already written.

Friday, September 16 - You received another in-class work day to further your progress on the newspaper project.

Monday, September 19 - We began looking at the elements of character in class. The first of our two big ideas was to understand direct and indirect characterization. Keep in mind that direct characterization is easy, as it's a stated fact the narrator states about the character, while indirect characterization requires analysis on the part of the reader based on the actions, words and descriptions of the characters. The other big idea is to focus on internal and external conflict. Emotionally struggling with an idea is internal, while physically struggling against an outside force is external.

Tuesday, September 20 - Yet another meeting prevented me from being present in class despite being present on campus. You read "The Interlopers," containing one of my favorite single word endings in a short story, and completed the characterization sheet to the best of your ability.

Wednesday, September 21 - You received yet another day to work on your newspaper project.

Thursday, September 22 - Read the description for September 21 because the same applies here.

Friday, September 23 - We finished going over the elements of character, exploring flat and round characters as well as static and dynamic characters. Remember that round characters can be static or dynamic, while flat characters are always going to be static. Also, we discovered how detrimental poor directions can be on assignments when I am not present, and I asked you to revise your characterization worksheets with more specific instructions.

Seniors
Monday, September 12 - We listened to Blues Traveler's "The Hook" and explored the idea of saying a whole lot while claiming to say nothing.

Tuesday, September 13 - I was gone, and you read the poem "Autumn Begins in Martin's Ferry, OH," answering questions that accompanied the poem.

Wednesday, September 14 - You received a reading/annotation day for the lit project.

Thursday, September 15 - After turning in the first Article Selection assignment, you took the lit terms test covering the second set of terms. Following the completion of the quiz, we reviewed the concept of ethos, pathos and logos. It was review for most of you, which is fine. No one ever hurt themselves by learning more about a concept.

Friday, September 16 - We furthered our foray into argumentation by covering different logical fallacies. The idea is to understand that while someone can have a strong or salient point, he or she can weaken their argument by committing these fallacies. So don't do that.

Monday, September 19 - We finished covering the logical fallacies. You received the op-ed assignment where you got the chance to see SO MANY logical fallacies in action.

Tuesday, September 20 - While I was at yet another meeting, you continued working on the assignment from the day before.

Wednesday, September 21 - The period was the final reading/annotation day prior to the first annotation check where you had to have the first 25% of your lit project book read and annotated. Hopefully, you used it well.

Thursday, September 22 - You used the class period to complete the first of four in-class timed writings. You received two prompts, one a little easier than the other but with a higher degree of difficulty, and wrote for the entire class period. After finishing the timed writing, you turned in your books for the first annotation check. The revision of the timed writing, which needs to be typed in MLA format, is due Tuesday, September 27.

Friday, September 23 - I returned your books and your first article selection. I utilized the comment key when grading the latter and gave you a copy of the same. We used the period to explain the different facets of the comment key, and I hope seeing a tangible usage of the comment key on your assignment emphasized its importance.

Book 28 of 2011

I finished this using the Kindle app on my laptop during my prep period.

27) Let's Get It On: The Making of MMA and It's Ultimate Referee by "Big" John McCarthy with Loretta Hunt
One of the big items on my bucket list is to serve in some capacity as either a judge or referee in MMA. It's not something that is just going to happen, I understand. And in the meantime I should probably start taking jiu-jitsu classes or something similar as a way to further my knowledge and understanding of the sport, but, similar to teaching being a way to further my passion for English, I like to think being a ref or a judge is a way for me to contribute to something about which I'm very passionate. At the moment, it's a financial and time commitment that I can't afford, but that's why it's a bucket list, right? John McCarthy is the first and most famous ref in MMA, and his book provides a ton of insight into how refs function inside and outside of the fight game.

UFC 135

I'm really excited for this card (to the point I started writing this preview the Tuesday before UFC Rio). Of course, that jinxed the card as Diego Sanchez broke his hand a week or so later, forcing Josh Koscheck to replace him in the fight against Matt Hughes. And upon further review, it's a two match show, but they're a really cool two matches.

Mark Hunt vs. Ben Rothwell - This is a battle of the lurps. From what I understand, Mark Hunt had an iron-clad contract with Pride that UFC absorbed when they purchased the company, preventing him from getting cut if he loses. How else can they explain that he debuted with UFC coming off a five fight losing streak, lost his first match in just over a minute, and still has a job? Meanwhile, Ben Rothwell is a terrible fighter that looks, acts and fights like the beta version of Tim Sylvia. He employs a Homer Simpson strategy of letting someone hit him enough times until his opponent tires out, except that it often backfires and Rothwell is the one that gasses. Also, he's dumb and stupid and a lunkhead with a much higher opinion of his fighting prowess than is deserved. Let's also not forget that both he and Mark Hunt could literally eat me for lunch if either wanted, but I have the armor of the Internet to protect me. Since both guys are equally terrible, I'm hoping for a mutually assured destruction type of finish where both guys spontaneously combust due to how much pure, unmitigated human bile will be in the octagon, and the only thing that would make it better is if Steve Mazzagatti is also the ref and he, too, explodes. Barring that, Rothwell will probably finish Hunt by TKO in the first, or he'll get a boring decision.

Nate Diaz vs. Takanori Gomi - Gomi has looked pretty awful in making the transition from Japan to the UFC, with a sole knockout win of Tyson Griffin sandwiched between losses to Kenny Florian and Clay Guida. Meanwhile, Diaz is coming off two losses in a row at welterweight, one an even grappling match to Dong Hyun-Kim and the other a fight where Diaz was completely dismantled and destroyed by Rory "Bacne" MacDonald. Diaz has the much better ground game while Gomi's wrestling skills give him the advantage. Both have good stand-up with the power edge going Gomi's way. However, Diaz, much like his nutbar of a brother Nick, has much quicker hands and can pepper a guy with three shots for each one thrown by his opponent. He's making his return to 155 lbs., which may not work in his favor, but will definitely give him the size advantage over a guy that should be fighting at featherweight or even bantamweight. Plus, Gomi doesn't have the speed he used to have and really seems to be coasting on past glory. I suspect that Diaz will submit Gomi in the third round.

Travis Browne vs. Rob Broughton - It's another battle of lurps! Except this time, they're both slightly younger and possibly more talented. Honestly, I haven't seen enough of Broughton to give a solid opinion on him, but Browne is coming of a great KO of Stefan Struve (1) and is technically undefeated. I'll give Browne the nod and when I don't know either fighter well enough, it's always by way of decision.

(1) Stefan Struve stands 6'11'' and towers over everyone else in the heavyweight division as its tallest member. He's fighting Pat Barry on October 1. Barry is the shortest guy in the heavyweight division at 5'9'' AND I CAN'T WAIT FOR THAT FIGHT! UFC generally doesn't do freak show fights, and this technically isn't that, but it's still going to be quite the spectacle considering that Struve can literally stick his arm out on Barry's head and laugh while the latter swings wildly at air.

Matt Hughes vs. Josh Koscheck - As a lifelong pro wrestling fan, it's really easy to see the dynamics inherent to MMA that used to be the exclusive domain of sports entertainment. While Diego Sanchez taking on the former Welterweight Champion was an intriguing fight, his broken hand prevents the fight from taking place right now. However, Josh Koscheck presents just as interesting a fight and adds an extra dynamic of him being a humongous jerk. Koscheck knows how fans feel about him and he plays his role to perfection. In fact, in a lot of ways, Josh Koscheck is the greatest natural pro wrestling heel in all of MMA.

And he's facing a guy that recently experienced a bit of a face turn in my eyes. Granted, the change has come more in my perception of him than in anything Hughes himself has done. Matt Hughes has a tendency to come across as arrogant when facing humble opponents, but he's never deviated from being the same guy over the years despite that rubbing people the wrong way. After attending a Matt Hughes Q&A over the summer, I really started to appreciate what my buddy Scott had believed about Hughes all along: he just tells it like it is. If what Hughes says happens to be something that's true about him, that doesn't necessarily make it bragging or arrogance.

This is the last fight on Hughes' contract, and reports are that his wife wants him to call it quits after this one. Koscheck is coming off a ten month layoff due to GSP cracking his orbital bone. Really, it's a fight that should have happened a long time ago. I don't think that Hughes ducked a fight with Koscheck, but he didn't exactly seek it out either. This is the kind of battle that would have cemented Hughes' supremacy at the time or made Koscheck a star. Unfortunately, Hughes' legacy is pretty well-established at this point and Koscheck is already a star, so a win isn't going to further either guy up the ladder nor will a loss really hurt either of them. When Sanchez got axed, my first thought was that Rory MacDonald made the most sense for Hughes because he's an up-and-comer in the way Koscheck was many years ago. But you play the hand you're dealt.

The two are pretty close to even in their wrestling, and Koscheck has the advantage standing while Hughes has the advantage when implementing submissions. Fights between wrestlers of this caliber usually end up being stand-up affairs, and Koscheck's speed and knockout power will conceivably give Hughes a lot of problems, especially coming off his 20 second knockout loss to BJ Penn. This is a fight where my heart desperately wants Hughes to win while my brain screams that Koscheck will come out victorious. If it's stopped, Koscheck will be the one to end it, probably by TKO. BUT! My official pick is that Matt Hughes will win by split decision because he has a tendency to sway the judges with his grappling even when he's losing on his feet.

Quinton "Rampage" Jackson vs. Jon "Bones" Jones (c) for the UFC Light Heavyweight Championship - Let's ignore all of the silliness of accusations that Jones has a spy in Rampage's camp because Jones said it best during the Countdown special: Rampage never has a complex game plan. He rarely uses his wrestling anymore except for takedown defense, only attempts to throw hands while focusing on counterpunching, and utilizes knees to the legs and midsection while caught in the clinch.

Meanwhile, Jones, the youngest Light Heavyweight Champion in UFC history, utilizes an array of strikes, has had no trouble taking anyone down and has demonstrated a varied and unique submission game. He has the height and reach advantage over Rampage and showed in winning the belt that he can implement the jab and all sorts of kicks to keep the distance if he chooses. Rampage says that Jones doesn't have the power to take him out, but Shogun Rua's face tells a different story.

Honestly, Rampage is so one-dimensional and Jones is so multi-dimensional that I can't see any way Rampage comes out of this the winner. The real test for Jones is how he responds to being threatened in a fight, and the problem in trying to figure that out is that Jones so far has not been threatened in the least. He's taken out a string of middle-of-the-pack fighters and destroyed two top ten guys in Bader and Shogun. Is Bader as good as he appeared? A loss to Tito Ortiz suggests he may not have been. Did Jones face Shogun at the top of his game? All signs point to no, thanks to his destruction of Forrest Griffin. Should that take away from Jones and his accomplishments? At the end of the day, it shouldn't. If you're healthy enough to take a fight then you're healthy enough to lose a fight.

All of this is to just find some justifiable way to consider a Rampage win, and nothing convinces me that will happen. I suspect that Jones will wear Rampage down with leg kicks and strikes to the body, following up on that with some ground and pound on a prone Jackson in the later rounds. Jon Jones will TKO Rampage Jackson in the fourth round. Then things get interesting as I suspect that we'll get the much-anticipated Jon Jones/Rashad Evans fight come Superbowl weekend.

Book 27 of 2011

While my wife watched a show about housewives, I finished this book.

27) The Score (Parker Novels) by Richard Stark

Never having been one for crime or detective novels, I saw that this one was on sale for the low, low price of absolutely nothing for the Amazon Kindle. (It still is, as of this writing, by the way.) This is about as blank a state as I've ever approached a book, which is especially notable for one that is number five in a series. My problem is that I always want to start on the first book of any series so I don't feel lost, but I took a chance here and it paid off since the lack of knowledge wasn't a hindrance. These aren't meant to be read in any specific order that I can tell, and any references to previous books didn't stand out enough that they needed an explanation. A new reader doesn't need to know anything other than Parker, the main character, is a gruff, deliberate, no-nonsense, professional criminal. The rest explains itself.

The important thing is that the book is good, even if it's a little dated now, having first been published in 1964. The plan is to rob an entire town. The story builds appropriately, involves a few colorful characters and pays off with a suitable twist that doesn't feel like a cheat. It's not high literature, but it's an enjoyable story that pays itself off and provides a character I wouldn't mind revisiting. In reading up on the Parker series, I found that the first book serves as the inspiration for the movie Payback, starring famous nutcase Mel Gibson, which I really enjoy, so...good job, this book!

My only criticism actually comes in the Kindle layout of the book. There were a few spelling/grammatical errors as well as some problems with the layout where dialogue between two characters is formatted as one paragraph more than once. Again, the book was free, so I'm not complaining so much as warning anyone hoping to read this particular version that those kind of things might make the reading experience confusing.

COMICS and Costumes

With DC's relaunch of their entire line of titles, I decided to pick a few of them up to test the waters of reading comics on a regular basis again since I'd given up the habit and switched to trade paperbacks for the last few years due to the cost of individual titles. Not surprisingly, comics are still expensive and for some unknown reason that I'm sure DC and Marvel will both regret given the hindsight of enough time, they charge the same price for issues digitally. But having a solid, new jumping-on point for an increasingly insular and serialized world helps, thus COMICS.

Action Comics - Grant Morrison is my favorite writer, and he's attempting to bring Superman back to his Golden Age roots where he fought for the poor and downtrodden against the wealthy and powerful. Unfortunately, this has also led to a costume downgrade where he merely wears a t-shirt and jeans with work boots and a cape...and that's strange. I'm not a huge fan of Rags Morales doing the art duties, but I'm intrigued enough in a somewhat depowered Superman that isn't Smallville that I'll stick around for as long as Morrison steers the ship.

Batwing - The dialogue is corny, but I enjoy that Batman is helping establish a global identity for his brand of justice, establishing that the Batman Inc. storyline from a few months ago isn't entirely dead.

Stormwatch - This felt like writer Paul Cornell was breaking the cardinal rule of writing of "show not tell." There was way too much expository dialogue that didn't really explain all that much. There's no problem with dropping the reader in on the middle of a story and allowing them to catch up, but this issue didn't present the opportunity for that catching up. There was a lot of standing around and talking, but without witty dialogue and then very little action.

Batgirl - This...this was awful. Batgirl is portrayed as weak and ineffectual, her roommate is right out of Stock Modern Hippie Characters 101, and the villain is stupid. Plus, the police are stupid, especially in the final scene. DC made a lot of waves in taking Barbara Gordon out of her wheelchair-bound persona of Oracle and placing her back in the cape and cowl of Batgirl, and even that was glossed over in a lazy fashion. However, in the comic's defense, it wasn't the WORST thing I read this week.

Detective Comics - This was the absolute worst thing I read this week. Jim Lee's redesign barely works when it's drawn by Jim Lee, and it completely misses every mark when drawn by anyone else. NOT EVERYONE IS GOOD AT DRAWING UNNECESSARY SEAMS, JIM LEE! However, the art is better than the nonsensical story, which is filled with an over-the-top climactic scene at the end that literally saw me say "Ew...!" A review I read described this as an issue of Spawn where someone went through the script and just did a Find and Replace on Microsoft Word to insert Batman and the Joker's names. On top of that, none of the characterization felt true to the core of the characters. The Joker has friends? What? Has writer Tony Daniel ever heard of the Joker? I'm glad I had to buy this digitally because that allows me to delete the issue and never have to read it again.

Justice League International - My big problem with the launch of Justice League last week was the fact that it had seven characters on the cover, three and a half of which show up in the actual issue. The whole thing amounted to a Green Lantern/Batman conversation with Superman showing up acting like a jerk on the last two pages while Cyborg isn't recognizable as his namesake. It takes time to introduce these characters, you say? Well, not according to Justice League International, which does a fine job of introducing each person, gives them distinct personality quirks and creates an intriguing arc of playing Booster Gold as the leader of the team because he's an easily manipulated patsy. This is not rocket science and it's been done before to great success in the past. Justice League, take a cue from your B-team, and get it together.

Animal Man - The art is appropriately keeping a foot in two worlds by presenting Animal Man as a down-to-Earth superhero who's been out of the game for a little while while also managing to up the creep factor when he enters a dream sequence. This felt like everything an Animal Man comic should be by making him a relatable family man, an animal rights activist, and a superhero greatly in tune with his power. Animal Man wins the week.

Frosh
Last Monday, August 29, you took the Animal Farm re-test. This is next on my list of things to grade as soon as I finish up the dialectical journals.

On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, August 30 through September 1, we discussed everything Animal Farm. While you were given a list of discussion questions, I focused more on the questions you had first and foremost. The answers you provided still wound up covering much of the information that I would have liked to have covered had we just focused on the given questions. This is one of those occasions where everyone wins. You also turned in your annotated Animal Farm books

Then on that same Thursday and the following Friday, September 2, we began covering the Jane Shaffer essay terms.

This past Tuesday, we completed those terms and I assigned the Animal Farm plot chart which you worked on for the rest of the period. By the way, the climax is when Boxer gets taken away to the slaughter house. It's at that point that everyone has their dreams crushed, and the animals are resigned to a life similar to or worse than the one that Jones provided previously. Soul crushing, right?

Wednesday and Thursday, you watched The Russian Revolution in Color, the content of which is self-explanatory to anyone paying attention to the title. You took notes on the aspects of history that you could connect to the plot of the book.

You're going to use those notes to complete two chunks (a concrete detail sentence followed by two commentary sentences) on two separate Animal Farm characters where you compare what happened in the book to the events of the Russian Revolution. Depending on your class period today, we created at least one chunk on Old Major and either started or completed one on Mr. Jones. The two chunks are due Monday, September 12.

Seniors
Our look at philosophy continued on Monday, August 29, when we discussed Plato and Aristotle in depth. The thing to remember about those two and Socrates is the following: Socrates asked why. Plato explained why. Aristotle explained how we got to why.

Tuesday, August 30, we read and (somewhat) discussed the Allegory of the Cave. It's amazing how relevant this remains almost two and a half millennia later. In fact, a recent story I first saw on Gizmodo discusses a very similar occurrence that happened recently. These lab chimps saw daylight for the very first time in over 30 years, and their reaction of joy and contentment is something to behold. Notice how they relish the moment and attempt to take everything in by looking around their new, natural surroundings. AND THEY HUG! I've probably watched that video five times just to see how happy the chimps are feeling the sun on their skin. It's amazing.

You took the first lit terms test on Wednesday, August 31. Retakes will be allowed on Monday, September 12, and Thursday, September 15.

We discussed the idea of the cave on Thursday, September 1, and you worked on the questions associated with Plato's dialogue.

Friday, September 2, you completed the first and easiest part of the lit project by having your book or order form for your book. We discussed annotation and how to be successful when attempting to annotate. Check out this list if you're ever confused.

• examples of lit terms in action (especially the proceeding three)
• motif
• theme
• symbol
• unfamiliar words (define them)
• commentary on what happens (explain your thoughts & opinions)
• important/notable passages (briefly explain why you think said passages are notable or important)
• character development (note new characters, character descriptions, or major changes to characters)
• ask questions (provide answers later, when possible)
• chapter summaries (describe three important things that happened)

This past Tuesday, you received the article selection guidelines and were asked to write an article selection-style precis on the Allegory of the Cave using MLA format. This serves as practice for the article selection assignments you'll be completing over the course of the lit project. The first of those is due Thursday, September 15.

Speaking of September 15, that's when you'll be taking your next lit terms test, the terms for which you received on Wednesday and Thursday. Once we finished going over those terms, you received time to read and annotate. Hopefully, you used that time productively. Here are the terms:

1. Symbol
2. External Conflict
3. Internal Conflict
4. Denotation
5. Antagonist
6. Protagonist
7. Point of View
8. Foreshadowing
9. 1^st person pov
10. 3^rd per. Limited
11. Dramatic Irony
12. Verbal Irony
13. Tone
14. Setting
15. Mood
16. Connotation
17. 3^rd per. Omniscient
18. Situational Irony
19. Irony
20. Simile

Today, the practice article selection assignment was due. After turning that in, we discussed advertising slogans, something to which no one is immune, myself included. As promised, here's a compilation of Mac Tonight commercials. Apparently, Mac has been revived in CGI form for a Singapore ad campaign that informs customers that McDonalds is now open 24 hours. Maybe he'll get a similar revival in the states sometime soon.

If you're interested in seeing a picture of me in that infamous costume, I posted one over at my Facebook page. You'll also find that my dad knew exactly where it was in the garage and fished it down. My mom is quite the craftswoman since that moon head has survived almost 24 years, which is pretty impressive for paper-mache and cardboard.