finally getting pictures off my camera --

i have various pictures i'm not going to post because they're pictures of, you know, people. but here's one from the pride parade in new york. it amused me (and a lot of the folks marching, for that matter).

there is very little so satisfying --

-- as reading negative reviews written by people who can really handle the language. anyone who's never read dorothy parker's "constant reader" columns should do so without further delay. because i'm bored this afternoon, i've been systematically combing the chicago sun-times website and reading ebert's zero-star reviews.

"mad dog time should be cut into free ukelele picks for the poor."

"if you, under any circumstances, see little indian, big city, i will never let you read one of my reviews again."

"[slackers] made me feel unclean, and i'm the guy who liked there's something about mary and both american pie movies. oh, and booty call. this film knows no shame."

and of course, the famous review of north: "i hated this movie. hated hated hated hated hated this movie. hated it."

thoughts about school.

I've been getting conflicting advice about the necessity and/or wisdom of writing a master's thesis.

I'll be able to finish my coursework this fall, so if I wanted to write a thesis, I could spend the whole spring on it. That's not a bad concept, apart from I've been having trouble even beginning to think of what to write the thing on. And on the one hand, it really seems like not writing a thesis will hurt my master's degree (it can't really hurt my chance of getting into a PhD program, because I'd have to submit those applications before I'd even begun writing it, due to the university's requirement that a student not even submit a thesis proposal until passing her comps). There are people who agree with me on this. On the other hand, though, there are those who tell me that a thesis-less MA is worth no less than an MA with a thesis, and that killing oneself to get a master's thesis written is a waste of time and energy that ought better to be saved for one's doctoral thesis. If you don't need to write a thesis, they say (and I don't; that is, I can get the master's without it, and there's no topic burning a hole in my thoughts, singing to me and begging to be written about), then don't. The don't-write-a-thesis crowd tends overwhelmingly to be senior to the write-a-thesis crowd.

Anyone have more thoughts? I'd feel a lot better about making a decision either way if I already knew where I was going for the PhD.