Eddy

The fall semester is starting nicely... well, as nicely as school can go. The freshmen are getting advice, clubs are starting to meet, I've been practicing the closed-mouth yawn, and fraternities and sororities are recruiting. Well, you know, they were. They do it early, and then... it's this whole process.

A distinguished professor came to speak in the common room in my dorm the other day, but I was so not there. I remembered his name from last year's freshman orientation. I could have sworn I mentioned him in my original post, but I guess it didn't. At the orientation, he gave a talk to us where he said we would have a horrible college experience and fail all our classes. He was... acerbic. Not a fun guy at all. I can't imagine what "advice" he gave the people on my floor this time.

I don't really see the point of fraternities and sororities. They almost seem to exist for the purpose of making money. You're basically paying lots of money to have friends and do stuff. I can do that for free. I read The Ritual of Kappa Sigma on Wikileaks. The quasi-religious rituals were pretty ridiculous, the anti-atheist discrimination disgusting. Then there's the hazing and the dangerous partying. But probably the biggest problem I have with these groups is that they dominate campus politics. Whenever one of my friends joins a fraternity or sorority, a little piece of me dies. At least two of them have done so this fall. But I recognize that they probably have good reasons for joining, and it's their decision to make. I'm not just saying that because they both read this blog. (Okay, maybe I am, but it really is their business and not mine.)

One of the aforementioned friends, Adam, recently reminded me that I should write for the Independent Florida Alligator, the most popular student newspaper at UF. Today, they were having an open house, so I went off campus to stop by. The place looked pretty familiar, which means I've probably passed by and looked in the window before. They work out of a pretty small space with issues from throughout their 100-year history hanging up all over the place.

I was directed to the sports editor, who I guess is also in charge of editorial columns (or "eddies"). Having no little experience writing for a newspaper (I remember in mid-sentence that I submitted an article or two to the online-only, now defunct Pompano Pulse), I received some advice on what it takes to write an editorial column. Basically, I would just have to write about things that everyone can react to. On this blog, I basically write about two things: things I do and things I think. A column would be all about the things I think based on the things I have done. Can I write like that? Can I reach out to lots of college students? Can I do it on a weekly basis? Can I keep to 600 words? Can I write extremely short paragraphs?

Maybe.

I'm supposed to send the guy some samples, but I'm not sure if I have any blog posts that would fit the bill (my last post notwithstanding). I'm not used to writing where money is at stake. The Alligator is a business. They need writers that the students can connect with because then they get a greater circulation and sell more ads. Could I have fun writing in an environment that's all about the deadline and the bottom line? I'm not sure.

In a world where movie trailer voice-overs were boring... one man redefined an industry. Now, Don LaFontaine, the man who lent his deep, gravelly voice to thousands of movie trailers, has died at 68. Here's an interview with him. (From the archives: I linked to a video featuring LaFontaine and other prominent voice-over artists on August 28, 2005.)

This month marks the 25th birthday of GNU, a free operating system that has achieved relatively widespread popularity bundled with the Linux kernel. Now, the Free Software Foundation, which sponsors GNU, has released a short video of British comedian Stephen Fry explaining GNU to you. (The video is in Ogg Theora format.)