An Introduction

Hello,

            My name is Evan Coopersmith and these words represent the musings of my scatterbrained procrastination.  I am, at least in terms of paying my bills, a PhD candidate in environmental engineering at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.  That said, I am more urbanite than Urbana-ite, more cunning than country, and unfortunately and unashamedly, more corny than cornfields.  This is an introduction.  This is an introduction to me, my gratuitously verbose and turgid writing, and the myriad interests which I hope will populate this blog. 

The genre of blogging itself represents this age of impatience – where athletes tweet politically charged epithets without spell-checking, where politicians lob charges of stupidity, hypocrisy, and ideological infidelity in thirty-second sound-bites, and quite recently, one could purchase a home without such lofty prerequisites as a source of income.  Blogs fit this paradigm, wherein a fool without any professional writing experience or journalistic pedigree can pontificate into the vast ethereal world of zeros and ones and, if sufficiently entertaining, have a reasonable expectation of readers consuming their verbiage.  I am such a fool.  Apparently, you are such a reader.

So what is this blog about, and why should you take the time from your exceedingly complex and well-scheduled lives to consume it?  One, the tangled web of disorganized neurons which inhabits my cranium tends to generate thoughts, quips, and phrases, which if only marginally coherent, are wholly original.  Two, my interests are as diverse as the muppets – I’ll explore the world of discussion topics the way Columbus explored the world…with no idea where he was going or where he was, even after he’d been there several times.  Below is an utterly disorganized list that on some level, introduces me:

-          I believe imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, and that parody is the most sincere form of imitation.  My victims of parody include Gilbert & Sullivan, Dr. Seuss, Edgar Allen Poe, and Eminem.  Often, my lyrics are scatological, lascivious, self-deprecating, and highly political.  I am an equal opportunity offender, frequently disparaged, and thoroughly unapologetic.

-          I love scrutinizing professional sports on a highly statistical level.  My senior thesis was entitled “Asymmetric Objectives and Inefficient Markets: A Non-Parametric Predictor for Major League Baseball Games and the Evaluation of Betting Lines.”  The model was as successful as its title is pretentious.  My fiancée’s engagement ring was financed with the winnings.  The combination of enhanced steroid policy and the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act (UIGEA) put a stop to such ventures.

-          The aforementioned law offended me on several levels.  Despite my quasi-conservative fiscal views, I am extremely liberal socially.  Beyond the political illogic of rendering something illegal in this nation which is incredibly accessible in other nations remotely (thereby essentially transferring revenues overseas from degenerates who will wager whether it is legal or not) the bill’s congressional sponsor built the student center on the college campus on which I wrote said thesis.  His son graduated in my class.

-          I work in my pajamas.  However, I do not sleep in them.

-          I think “warp” is an excellent idea whether it is applied to wood, the starship enterprise, or a baseball-player’s statistics.

-          I do not hold grudges politically, but I certainly vote grudgingly.

-          I have an excellent sense of comedic timing…I started a hedge fund with two old classmates and began live trading on September 2^nd, 2008.

-          We traded profitably during the collapse.  I have often described this phase of my life as “playing poker on the titanic.”  Even if you win, the boat still sinks.

-          I am theologically cynical…I met the woman I love at Hillel.

-          I am 5’7’’, 150 lbs, and play sports with reckless abandon hoping my next game will not be my last.

-          Perhaps I should spend less time playing “ultimate” frisbee.

-          I have played fantasy sports for real money.

-          I eat like it’s going out of style.  Sadly, I dress like it too.

-          There is a bottle of quintuple-X hot sauce sitting in my pantry.  It is nearly empty.  If in twenty years they discover that capsaicin is carcinogenic, I’m screwed.

-          I can sing the lyrics from Tom Lehrer’s elements song,  “One Week,” “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine),” “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” and the lists of presidents and nations of the world from Animaniacs.  Sadly, I make no promises regarding my ability to stay on key.

-          The first cassette I ever purchased was composed by Weird Al. 

-          I sing Broadway show-tunes when I am inebriated. 

-          I sing Broadway show-tunes when I am sober.
-     I write disorganized lists...which mirror the disorganization in my head.

-          Yes, my previous comment about a fiancée implies that a woman is actually willing to spend time with me on a regular basis.

-          I believe George Carlin was a genius.

-          I believe that more wisdom can be found in the lyrics of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Warren Zevon than any spiritual text.

-          I believe Aaron Sorkin is the most talented living screen-writer.  I also believe that somewhere inside his head, a metronome beats an energetic rhythm to which he writes.  I’m guessing he can’t turn off said metronome…which explains his various addictions.

-          Woody Allen once said that rather than achieve immortality through his work, he would prefer to achieve it through “not dying.  The challenge of atheism is that it requires that one embraces the utterly finite nature of one’s existence.  And so I write.

-          I am flattered by anyone still reading.  To be continued.