Shredding College

I really did feel kind of guilty throwing the one-inch stack of photocopied 18th century plays into the recycling with the junk mail and newspapers.

I hesitated for just a moment, thinking, "Gee, I should read these things and see if I can understand them this time around."

But it passed.

Shredding the class notes, however, was pure joy. I love the sound of the shredder. There's nothing more satisfying, especially when I'm feeling stressed from work. I sometimes shred junk mail just for the hell of it.

What took me so long to get rid of these things?

Initially I clung to them because I thought someday I might find myself suddenly in the position to teach a literature class. After more than a decade, it finally hit me that it's unlikely an institution of higher learning will get that desperate. And if they do, I would first turn to the Internet, not boxes of scrawled notes in my basement.

So, out they go. I'm slowly working my way through the folders.

Now, if I could only figure out what to do with the enormous anthologies clogging my bookshelf.

Super Tuesday Part II

Just when I thought I had figured out what happened today, I read the last paragraph of this article and am utterly confused all over again.

(in an article titled Huckabee wins W.Va. GOP convention)

Of the three Republican National Committee members from West Virginia who each have a vote at the national convention, only one has declared a preference — for Romney.

Ah yes, this all makes perfect sense.

The best $2.25 of the year...so far

I have short hair, but it's still long enough to cause problems clogging up sink & bathtub drains -- especially last fall when my hair was falling out at an alarming rate for an unknown reason.

In the past, I used 10 Minute Hair Clog Remover, a liquid that runs between $6-7 for the smaller size jug. That used to work pretty well, but as I said, the past few months have been pretty severe and it just wasn't unclogging the drains.

So when I saw this at Lowe's, I jumped at the chance to give it a try.



I'd heard it touted on one of the Saturday morning home improvement radio shows. And for $2.25 -- well, what the hell.

OMG! It worked like a charm. My drains are running faster than they've run in a year or more. And it took me about 10 minutes and $2.25 to achieve the result.

A few words of caution:

• This isn't a job for the queasy. You're bound to dislodge a slimy mass of nastiness.


• The plastic teeth are very sharp.


• The package says it's to be used only once, but I'm going to live on the edge and re-use. I was able to very carefully clean it with paper towels and water. If you decide to save it, keep the package for storage because -- again -- the teeth are very sharp.

Um, yeah, as you might have been able to deduce, I sliced my finger pretty good on the darn thing.

Super Extraordinary Tuesday

Tuesday, Feb. 5, is not just super in WV. It will be kind of eerie because someone is going "to take West Virginia" in Super Tuesday -- yet none of the polls in WV will be open.

That's right. Over 3 months before our primary, Mitt Romney is projected to take WV on Feb. 5, according to the NBC & Fox News analysts I listened to this morning. I'm sitting there thinking, "Gee, but we're not voting Tuesday. That Romney is one sly fox."

Chris Wallace went as far to include WV when discussing various candidates' strategies for Super Tuesday, including WV in a cluster of states where Romney & McCain are launching TV ads because they believe voters can be influenced in those states.

And you know what? I saw a TV commercial for each yesterday. I think I was watching either ESPN or FoxNews at the time. Were they running those for the benefit of WV Republican party members who will be selecting national convention delegates on Feb. 5? Was it a goof? WTF?

And I still don't really get what's going to happen Feb. 5. (perusal of the WVGOP web site didn't enlighten me) Are they endorsing someone? Selecting delegates committed to vote for someone? (Romney, according to the TV political analysts) Or...are the national talking heads just completely off base?