i'm afraid of famous sociologists

dear friends,

two interesting pieces of mail have me a wee bit freaked. by interesting i of course mean sociologically interesting. first, i recieved my copy of the american sociological association's monthly newsletter "footnotes". it contained a list of the most cited american sociological review articles over the last 70 years. and second, i recieved my personalized princeton itenerary including times and places for meetings with various professors who have a particular interest in me. the fact that there are two people on my list (of five!) who are also on the list of most cited authors (two different articles, two different decades... prize! for anyone nerdy enough to know who)...

i am not sure why i am so nervous. for one, it is illogical... my favourite professor here gave me some great advice... she told me that i was the one interviewing them (since they can't take their offer back now... suckers!) and that if i didn't like them i could always just stay. she and chris both told me that one of the people on the list is just one of the niceset people in the history of ever, more a friend than a sociological genius. i have spoken with another on the phone and he did not sound like an android. and, i already know bob. for two, chris also promises that if it all becomes too much we can bail on optional things and go for drinks.

i think i am just so brain-dead as a result of log-linear assignments, annotated bibliography-ing, presentations, preparing for presentations, merging large panel data sets, worrying about getting everything done in three weeks and socially-awkward (last night i ordered dinner over the internet to avoid talking to a stranger) after living solo in the zen-icrm that i fear they will quite politely ask me something about my aspirations for next year, and i will begin to drool, twitch, stutter, shout obsenitites, or laugh hysterically for no-apparent reason.

maybe i spent too much time on that livejournal applyingtograd forum, i am becoming trez eeyore.
cam

log linear analysis with a dash of death

dear friends,

my hilarious (and at this moment sheer evil) stats prof entitled our current assignment "log-linear analysis with a causal flavor"... words cannot even express how much hate i have in my heart for all things log linear. (and, in case my pain is not apparent... that link is the clearest thing i have read on the subject)...

winner: first post by a member of 505 falling under the category log linear lamenting: liamail.
winner: best msn name related to log linear models: pat- log linear models <--- getting stabbed
runner up: best msn name related to log linear models: camaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh

log- no longer just the last three letters of blog,
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stalking zach braff, episode two

dear friends,

as any good stalker would, i have been trying to get more details on zach braff's trip to montreal. so i went to imdb and found out about the movie.

turns out the female lead is jacinda, from my favourite mtv-real world season "mtv real world london". who knew she did movies?

new plan: become an extra

fun sites found on filming in montreal in the process:

quebec shooting guide
cinema technician's union

any urban planners out there know how i can look up shooting permits etc?
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ps-my school work is totally getting in the way of me being a stalker

greetings from trenton

dear friends,

so, yesterday i went to visit my grannie. and shortly after i arrived, my cousin shawn and his wife julie dropped by as well. subsequently, i experienced the best evs reaction to my going to princeton.

shawn: you're going to princeton?
cam: yep
shawn: isn't that where carelton went?
cam: (looking at shawn quizically, trying to figure out if there is a family friend named carelton)
shawn: like from the fresh prince?
cam: (hysterical laughter)
shawn: maybe not... didn't carelton go there or want to go there?
julie: shawn, you watched that one last week... carelton went to visit princeton
shawn: it is a good show, you know if there is nothing else on

shawn is five years older than me, and by all accounts (other than this) a grown up.

me and carelton, it's not unusual...
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a summer wasting

dear friends,

maybe it is the fact that they have opened up the java u patio, or maybe it is the fact that i have no work ethic anymore but lately i have been procrastinating by looking for summer jobs. i am in the nice position of being fairly mobile and up for almost anything. this is afterall my last summer before actual phd stuff begins (not to be confused with my pretend phd stuff now). i would love to do nothing, but that is not feasible unless i spend 4 months in trenton and put all of my moving expenses on my credit card. i am aiming for something similar to the retirement summer of 2003 where i worked in my office at the stauffer library (aka a desk on the second floor) until the noon mass at st. mary's and then volunteered at martha's table in the afternoons and spent the evenings with shelley sewing, planning her wedding, and planning my potential busting up of one. oh what a summer it was. i made enough to pay the bills and came to mcgill excited about school.

i have had other good summers too-- the summer when i was 13 and watched matlock everyday before i went swimming, the summer before oac, the bbq friday summer, the notre dame summer, the part of last summer where i went to poland, the part of last summer where i came home to the icrm and the juleps. i mean this summer has so much potential, but i am not seeing how it can possibly compare. but, i am open to job suggestions, invitations to visit, or stealing your own good summer memories...

maybe i will just spend the summer hunting wolverines with my uncle,
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stalking zach braff, episode one

dear friends,

my kinja told me that zach braff updated his blog... so i went to check it out and low and behold, he is coming to montreal... and i quote:

"Getting ready to shoot "Last Kiss" in Montreal this spring. I hear that it's an amazing city and I'm looking forward to spending sometime outside of LA.
The script is really good and we're starting to fill out the rest of the cast. Michael Weston, who played Kenny the Cop in Garden State, got one of the male leads in the movie. "

so, i changed my msn name and began to plot my adventures with zach braff...

Lukas [ You're A HeckuvaMan, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
WHAAAAT
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
zach braff in montreal?
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
why did i leaaaave?
cam zach braff to shoot movie in montreal, cam to become offical stalker says:
his blog says he is shooting a movie here in the spring
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
ooooh!
cam zach braff to shoot movie in montreal, cam to become offical stalker says:
i am dreaming of meeting him at the shins show april 19th
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
that is exciting news indeed
cam zach braff to shoot movie in montreal, cam to become offical stalker says:
i am only half kidding about the stalking. if i do not have a full time job i will be powerless to resist
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
hahaha. i think you should blog your stalking
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
7:07am rooted through trash. found receipt for bag of chips. zach's??? i didn't see him being a ketchup kinda guy.
cam zach braff to shoot movie in montreal, cam to become offical stalker says:
where do you think he will stay?
cam zach braff to shoot movie in montreal, cam to become offical stalker says:
do you think he will want to have falafel with me at chez benny?
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
HAHAHAHA
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
that would be the awesomest.
Lukas [ You're A Heckuva Man, Doing A Heckuva Job ] says:
"I'm Carol-Ann. Come have falafel."
cam zach braff to shoot movie in montreal, cam to become offical stalker says:
that's how it starts... but it can only end with a) us happily married with braff babies or b) with me as an entertainment headline: zach braff stalker to go to trial

anyway, expect continuing reports as this story develops,
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more joel p

dear friends,

i swear that in spite of the blog's name, my severe case of the swoon, and several entries on the subject... this is not a joel plaskett fansite.

that said, i felt it my duty to alert you to the fact that angel's twenty is offering up another joel mp3 today.

that is all,
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counting down...four weeks, two days

dear friends,

my final stretch here at mcgill has begun. assuming i hand in all assignments on time and mark my essays at a reasonable pace i will be done school on april 19th. that is four weeks and two days from now

if i am successful in: writing 3 papers, completing 2-3 more stats assignments, marking 90 papers, and doing my ra-work i will be able to do the following:

a) go to the shins on april 19th (although tickets are bought so that is a done deal)
b) go to see joel p in ktown on april 20th (also the optimuscriminals, but joel p at the grad club swoon)
c) go see joel p in montreal on april 22nd *swoon*
d) go see joel p in hamilton on april 23rd *swoon* (and see ms. hez!!)
e) see the arcade fire, wolf parade, and fiery furnaces on april 24th (tickets also bought)

yay for joel plaskett tourism (although i am still not at go to halifax level fandom)... anyway, i hope this will begin a summer very similar to the retirement of summer 2003.

anyway, for those of you who aren't already committed to seeing joel with me in these various locales, and are curious... you can check out the following:

joel plaskett- love this town (mp3, you send it link)

i am loving this yousendit thing,
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which lifestyle type are you?

dear friends,

so i have been considering applying for a job with environics or another polling/research firm this summer. while on their site, i found their fascinating lifestyle classification system. the clusters all have rather hilarious names, but i don't think i fit neatly into any of them.

anyway, back to learning how to play poker/ doing my work...
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devendra banHEART news

dear friends,

page six was nothing too thrilling this morning, so i headed to pitchfork to check for more entertainment news and found the following:

On May 31, Troubleman Unlimited will release an album-length split featuring five songs by Devendra Banhart, and five by Jana Hunter, whose "Farm, CA" showed up on The Golden Apples of the Sun, a compilation curated by Banhart last summer. That song aside, Hunter is substantially less well-known than Banhart-- the split LP is kind of a Dre/Snoop venture, as far as we can tell-- but we can't imagine anyone who's into the freak-folk aesthetic not grabbing for their wallet immediately upon hearing about a song entitled "That Dragon Is My Husband"-- and we can't imagine anyone not being curious about the Pied Piper of freak-folk covering "Step in the Name of Love".

having already established that i heart him i should also say that i saw him do step in the name of love live, and it is is ha-mazing. since i could not find it anywhere on the inter-nerd, i actually resorted to buying the r. kelley version from itunes. i can share with the so inclined.

everyday is like sunday

dear friends,
so blender magazine has this list of the fifty worst songs of all time... i have put in pink the ones i actually like and i am not ashamed.

1. We Built This City ... Starship
2. Achy Breaky Heart ... Billy Ray Cyrus
3. Everybody Have Fun Tonight ... Wang Chung
4. Rollin' ... Limp Bizkit
5. Ice Ice Baby ... Vanilla Ice
6. The Heart of Rock & Roll ... Huey Lewis and the News
7. Don't Worry, Be Happy ... Bobby McFerrin
8. Party All the Time ... Eddie Murphy
9. American Life ... Madonna
10. Ebony and Ivory ... Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder
11. Invisible ... Clay Aiken
12. Kokomo ... The Beach Boys
13. Illegal Alien ... Genesis
14. From a Distance ... Bette Midler
15. I'll Be There for You ... The Rembrandts
16. What's Up? ... 4 Non Blondes
17. Pumps and a Bump ... Hammer
18. You're the Inspiration ... Chicago
19. Broken Wings ... Mr. Mister
20. Dancing on the Ceiling ... Lionel Richie
21. Two Princes ... Spin Doctors
22. Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American) ... Toby Keith
23. Sunglasses at Night ... Corey Hart
24. Superman ... Five for Fighting
25. I'll Be Missing You ... Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112
26. The End ... The Doors
27. The Final Countdown ... Europe
28. Your Body Is a Wonderland ... John Mayer
29. Breakfast at Tiffany's ... Deep Blue Something
30. Greatest Love of All ... Whitney Houston
31. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm ... Crash Test Dummies
32. Will 2K ... Will Smith
33. Barbie Girl ... Aqua
34. Longer ... Dan Fogelberg
35. Shiny Happy People ... R.E.M.
36. Make Em Say Uhh! ... Master P featuring Silkk, Fiend, Mia-X and Mystikal
37. Rico Suave ... Gerardo
38. Cotton Eyed Joe ... Rednex
39. She Bangs ... Ricky Martin
40. I Wanna Sex You Up ... Color Me Badd
41. We Didn't Start the Fire ... Billy Joel
42. The Sounds of Silence ... Simon & Garfunkel
43. Follow Me ... Uncle Kracker
44. I'll Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) ... Meat Loaf
45. Mesmerize ... Ja Rule featuring Ashanti
46. Hangin' Tough ... New Kids on the Block
47. The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You ... Bryan Adams
48. Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da ... The Beatles
49. I'm Too Sexy ... Right Said Fred
50. My Heart Will Go On ... Celine Dion

oh sunday, how i find unproductive ways to fill your hours,
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what i did last summer

dear friends,

as some of you know, i spent a month in poland last summer living in the above dominican priory, learning about catholic social teaching.

the deadline for this year's program is fast approaching, and i would encourage anyone with an interest in such things to check it out. it is also all-expenses paid, except airfare.

best,
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if you have three hours...

dear friends,

went to see the movie downfall last night. it is an absolutely fascinating look into the last days of hitlers' life. it's not your typical WW2 movie, but fascinating to anyone who is interested in that period.

it is playing at cinema du parc.

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the monday report, as reported on wednesday

dear friends,

i have realized my last few posts have been school-centric, so i would like to stress that i do try to go out everynow and again. in fact, monday i was super excited and braved the snow to see the zoobombs with sofi and tania. only thing is the zoobombs did not go on until 1 and with a class the next morning and not wanting to pay an insane cab fare i needed to catch the last metro. so, all i caught was the opening act. as the above illustration should suggest, they are the worst band in the history of ever. i don't know how they make enough money to rent their fog machine. i would rather watch david caruso playing "h" debate william shatner about some irrelevant po-mo garbage on the grounds of concordia campus than ever encounter them again.

all was not lost however, i did see tania and sofi. and, the adorable sales girl from preloved came over to tell me how awesome my preloved heartbeater looked. and it was a pretty pretty night and it made me realize how much i will miss m-city when i am in jersey.

there is another hot shit japanese rock show tommorow, but i already have plans to watch the oc.

trying hard to be hip and not hip replacement,
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and the votes are in

dear friends,

i would like to thank the tens of you who voted. i took your advice and am scheduled to visit p'ton from april 3th-april 5th

i heart surveymonkey,
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adventure chosen 

a grad school fairytale

dear friends,

i found this on the interweb...

Scene: It's a fine beautiful day in the forest and a rabbitis sitting outside his burrow, typing away on his laptop.Along comes a fox, out for a walk.
Fox: "What are you working on?"
Rabbit: "My Thesis paperto graduate from University."
Fox: "Hmmmmm. What is itabout?"
Rabbit: "Oh, I'm writing about how rabbits eatfoxes." (There is an incredulous pause)
Fox: "That's ridiculous! Any fool knows thatrabbits don't eat foxes!"
Rabbit: "Come with me and I'll showyou!"
They both disappear into the rabbit's burrow. After a fewminutes, gnawing on a fox bone, the rabbit returns to his laptop and resumes typing. Soon a wolf comes along and stops towatch the hard working rabbit. (Tippy-tap, tippy-tap,tippy-tippy-tap).
Wolf: "What's that you are writing?"
Rabbit: "I'm doinga thesis on how rabbits eats wolves." (loud guffaws).
Wolf: "You don't expect to get such garbage published, do you?"
Rabbit: "No problem. Do you want to see why?" The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow, and again therabbit returns by himself. This time he is patting hisstomach. He goes back to his typing. (Tippy-tap, tippy-tap,tippy-tippy-tap). Finally a bear comes along and asks,
Bear: "What are youdoing?"
Rabbit: "I'm doing a thesis on how rabbits eatsbears."
Bear: "Well that's absurd!"
Rabbit: "Come into myhome and I'll show you."
SCENE: Inside the rabbit's burrow. In one corner, there is apile of fox bones. In another corner is a pile of wolf bones.On the other side of the room a huge lion is belching andpicking his teeth.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY: ----------------------- It doesn'tmatter what you choose for a thesis topic. It doesn't matterwhat you use for your data. It doesn't even matter if yourtopic makes sense. What matters is who you have for a thesis advisor.

i am going to eat bears,
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when should i visit princeton?

dear friends,

in the spirit of choose-your-own adventure, i invite you to make decisions for me.

please?
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aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh 

furthermore

dear friends,

i must transform the information contained in these 150 seperate files into one manageable dataset containing information on the demographic characteristics and religious group activity of people in 11 waves...that's a lot of merging people. a lot of merging. and my oridnator does not like it.

fuck the duck
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data headaches and heartaches

dear friends,

if you do not hear from me for some time, please refer to the following link and blame especially figure 7.

it has been nice, hopefully we can catch up in six to eight weeks...
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sociology humour

dear friends,

while reading contexts, the sociological magazine, i stumbled across some sociological humour. as a discipline we'd be horrible at stand-up (puns about marx, jokes about stastistical programs, and hey did you hear the one about internal validity in research design...), but i thought this was hilarious none the less... harry green on the backpage offers up some links between sociology and al queda "sleepy cells", some highlights:

* millions of americans already associate "sociology" and "sleep", coincidence or sign of something deeply wrong?

* many individuals and departments were found suspicious for example:

• gary allan fine, northwestern university, no single person can write so much on such varied topics. we suspect-- no, we are pretty darned sure-- that professor fine is a cell of three operatives: gary, alan, and fine. is it a coincidence that his name is anagram for "go infintada" (more or less)
• robert wuthnow. have you ever seen him? neither have we. besides, he hasn't taught an undergraduate course at princeton university in thirty years. who but al queda has the deep pockets and sinister reach to pull off something like that
• berkeley ph d students take 15 years to finish, allowing plenty of time for advanced weapons training
• rational choice theorists. have you seen "the stepford wives"....

okay, so maybe not as funny as "what's the best part about winning a juno?" "you can take it home on the ttc", but still funny, no?

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