Minutes before 2pm, Angie was thinking like this:
...listening to Siny Platocheck, aka The Blue Shawl, a popular Russian song during WWII. I have no idea what the lyrics mean. Anyone care to be a fountain of information?
Friday, August 15, 2003
Thursday, August 14, 2003
BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL, I HAVE... no power.
I seem to be the only one in the state of Maryland who lost power today. It irks me. Mayor Williams said our area is unaffected, but I want a grandiouse, newsworthy explanation for why I, out of all people, had no power.
("CNN reports that all of the northeastern United States and southern Canada is in disorder as the cities of New York, Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa, Ontario, and Cleveland suffered a major power outage, bringing activity to a halt in Wall Street, airports, the subway, offices, and hospitals. Thousands streamed onto the streets or were trapped in elevators when workplaces lost power at approximately four in the afternoon today, and crowds of people were seen thronging across the Brooklyn bridge as public transportation was halted and traffic lights remained dark. Many people continue to be evacuated from subway cars and tunnels, and remain seperated from their families due to lack of transportation and cell phone failure. 140 miners are trapped 4000 feet below ground in four mines in Ontario, where there is no power for the elevators. Though the miners are in no immediate danger, the usage of ladders is certainly a possibility, to which the general response by said miners was, "No fucking way you motherfucking fuckers!" In the meantime, in one house in the Washington DC area, Angela of Rockville also has no power, but for no particular reason.")*
The power was already out when I got up at... 12:40pm (this is what I get for going to bed at 4 in the morning talking to Lauren on AIM and drawing Vash) and I called my dad since I knew he'd be concerned about the fish. He came home and put battery-operated pumps into the fish tanks, so that the fish could breathe.
Me, after dialing 411: "I want Pepco, the electricity people, not PetCo!"
Pepco (the automated lady for Pepco anyways) said they'd said a crew around and my power would come back on by 7:40 at night... but it came back on much earlier than that, at around 3 or so.
I think there is something viscerally appealing about having New York City be reduced to a jungle of stone towers and monuments like Mayan pyramids; not because like Nick said I want to see NYC humiliated, but because it gives the city a raw sense of power, to have such monoliths looming in the dark.
I went to the oral surgeon to get my stitches out, but apparently my stitches are dissolvable, and they've dissolved, except for one which really isn't worth digging around for. Otherwise, I'm good; no bone socket inflammation or anything like that.
*I made all of this up, though it is general paraphrasing of the actual news. Don't kill me. Or CNN. They're good people.
I seem to be the only one in the state of Maryland who lost power today. It irks me. Mayor Williams said our area is unaffected, but I want a grandiouse, newsworthy explanation for why I, out of all people, had no power.
("CNN reports that all of the northeastern United States and southern Canada is in disorder as the cities of New York, Detroit, Toronto, Ottawa, Ontario, and Cleveland suffered a major power outage, bringing activity to a halt in Wall Street, airports, the subway, offices, and hospitals. Thousands streamed onto the streets or were trapped in elevators when workplaces lost power at approximately four in the afternoon today, and crowds of people were seen thronging across the Brooklyn bridge as public transportation was halted and traffic lights remained dark. Many people continue to be evacuated from subway cars and tunnels, and remain seperated from their families due to lack of transportation and cell phone failure. 140 miners are trapped 4000 feet below ground in four mines in Ontario, where there is no power for the elevators. Though the miners are in no immediate danger, the usage of ladders is certainly a possibility, to which the general response by said miners was, "No fucking way you motherfucking fuckers!" In the meantime, in one house in the Washington DC area, Angela of Rockville also has no power, but for no particular reason.")*
The power was already out when I got up at... 12:40pm (this is what I get for going to bed at 4 in the morning talking to Lauren on AIM and drawing Vash) and I called my dad since I knew he'd be concerned about the fish. He came home and put battery-operated pumps into the fish tanks, so that the fish could breathe.
Me, after dialing 411: "I want Pepco, the electricity people, not PetCo!"
Pepco (the automated lady for Pepco anyways) said they'd said a crew around and my power would come back on by 7:40 at night... but it came back on much earlier than that, at around 3 or so.
I think there is something viscerally appealing about having New York City be reduced to a jungle of stone towers and monuments like Mayan pyramids; not because like Nick said I want to see NYC humiliated, but because it gives the city a raw sense of power, to have such monoliths looming in the dark.
I went to the oral surgeon to get my stitches out, but apparently my stitches are dissolvable, and they've dissolved, except for one which really isn't worth digging around for. Otherwise, I'm good; no bone socket inflammation or anything like that.
*I made all of this up, though it is general paraphrasing of the actual news. Don't kill me. Or CNN. They're good people.
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
I really should not read Savage Love, a highly dysfunctional sex advice column, before going to bed. Why? Because I get weird dreams.
I do not want to have any more dreams about making out with Nick B, or conspiring with Jen to lie to my mom, saying I'm lesbian.
Other dreams of last night that don't make sense include: camping out on an asphalt basketball court in a forest surrounded by buildings.
Die, subconscious, die.
I do not want to have any more dreams about making out with Nick B, or conspiring with Jen to lie to my mom, saying I'm lesbian.
Other dreams of last night that don't make sense include: camping out on an asphalt basketball court in a forest surrounded by buildings.
Die, subconscious, die.
Went to T's house today, where she warned me not to download exe files from Kazaa for fear of viruses, and not to keep my laptop on overnight in college, for fear of overheating. I will keep this in mind. She made me some miso soup, and I was duly impressed, because I've never had homemade miso soup.
I watched "Adaptation" with her, which she probably burned. It was good, yes. Profound, yes. Beautiful, in its own way, and I grudgingly agree that it really does deserve the title of "best movie of the year," as judged by Washington Post critics anyway. Yes, even over "The Two Towers." "Adaptation" is about Charlie Kaufman, a writer writing the screenplay for a dramatization of a book about orchids, aka the movie you're watching. So it's a movie about the writing of the movie... The acting is very naturalistic, and I recognized many things from life captured perfectly, from that little smile waitresses give you, to the politely charming and emotionally detached smalltalk of people at parties. It's basically the movie version of "To the Lighthouse," with similar thematic emphasis on the superficiality of plot and structure, and the importance of seeing and celebrating life as it is. (Though it has more plot than TTL) The funny thing is, immediately after a scene in which the screenwriter's twin brother, who typically writes thrillers, becomes Charlie's partner with the script, the movie becomes plotted and structured, with one increasingly unbelievable event following another in an incredibly cliched manner. I'd say the first half of the movie, without drug addicts, voyeurism, car chases, adulteresses, armed psychopaths, man-eating alligators, and people dying in each others' arms rings much truer, but I think that indeed is the point.
Something funny; at T's house, I called Malex, wondering if we could drop by, but of course he wasn't in. Turns out he was at Lauren's house with Janis watching Trigun; he'd called me and gotten my answering machine a little while before, and had actually come over and banged on my doors and windows. When I got home, I gave Lauren a ring, and through her had a long and zany conversation with the Trigun crowd over the phone.
More Trigun, Friday; Lauren is also holding an anime party on Saturday.
I watched "Adaptation" with her, which she probably burned. It was good, yes. Profound, yes. Beautiful, in its own way, and I grudgingly agree that it really does deserve the title of "best movie of the year," as judged by Washington Post critics anyway. Yes, even over "The Two Towers." "Adaptation" is about Charlie Kaufman, a writer writing the screenplay for a dramatization of a book about orchids, aka the movie you're watching. So it's a movie about the writing of the movie... The acting is very naturalistic, and I recognized many things from life captured perfectly, from that little smile waitresses give you, to the politely charming and emotionally detached smalltalk of people at parties. It's basically the movie version of "To the Lighthouse," with similar thematic emphasis on the superficiality of plot and structure, and the importance of seeing and celebrating life as it is. (Though it has more plot than TTL) The funny thing is, immediately after a scene in which the screenwriter's twin brother, who typically writes thrillers, becomes Charlie's partner with the script, the movie becomes plotted and structured, with one increasingly unbelievable event following another in an incredibly cliched manner. I'd say the first half of the movie, without drug addicts, voyeurism, car chases, adulteresses, armed psychopaths, man-eating alligators, and people dying in each others' arms rings much truer, but I think that indeed is the point.
Something funny; at T's house, I called Malex, wondering if we could drop by, but of course he wasn't in. Turns out he was at Lauren's house with Janis watching Trigun; he'd called me and gotten my answering machine a little while before, and had actually come over and banged on my doors and windows. When I got home, I gave Lauren a ring, and through her had a long and zany conversation with the Trigun crowd over the phone.
More Trigun, Friday; Lauren is also holding an anime party on Saturday.
Tuesday, August 12, 2003
I'm not sure that I like it that Malex has changed his name to Mike. He may also be dying his hair; and his moving to California is inevitable. It's like he's trying to transform himself into a different person, who is too cool for us. I don't mean it like a snub; just that the summer is ending with the days peeling off, and Mike feels as far removed as a person on the moon.
People drift apart, and Mike pushes off the banks and quietly slashes the moorings and goes gently into that good night.
People drift apart, and Mike pushes off the banks and quietly slashes the moorings and goes gently into that good night.
Around sunset on Sunday night, my parents picked up Jen at her house in a deer-infested neighborhood. When we returned, we would see four deer and a fawn at a moonlit crossing, eyes glowing like lamps, but in the meantime, we saw Pirates of the Caribbean at White Flint Mall. A pleasant surprise in that more people turned out than expected. Along with me and Jen, Janis came in tow with Lauren, and some Janis-groupies I don't know... James, Jessica, and some unintroduced person, who are only names and faces to me.
Pirates was absolutely hilarious. Movie critics seem to give it less credit than it is due, because they compare it to every single pirate movie released in the last 40 years (C'mon! Erol who??). See though, I was born in 1985 and had fun, you old farts. Yes, all the characters are cliches. Yes, not everything makes sense and many things are contrived. Yes, it is a movie inspired by a theme park ride. But it's not a theme park ride I've ever been on, and if people hadn't told me it was based on the ride, I'd never have made the connection. Unoriginal maybe, but everything's fresh to a new generation.
Constant debate between me, Janis, Jen and Lauren over who is hotter; Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom. I maintain that Orlando Bloom looks like a mishappen potato; Janis says that I'm just calling him the ugliest thing that I can think of and that he does not really remind me of a mishappen potato or any related tuber; but no, there are uglier things than mishappen potatoes; Orlando Bloom honestly does look like a one (potato). Janis helped me sort out the plotholes in Pirates also. We had a really long discussion about the physics of shooting forks from cannons, the weight of gunpowder vs the weight of cannonballs vs the weight of forks, the relative motion of a ship required to smack Orlando Bloom with a yard-arm, the effectiveness of a warship crewed by two people, and the appropriateness of mooring a rowboat at a ship's stern. (Janis remembered something about it in Moby Dick; apparently it is there to help men who fall overboard.) Random note: Probably nobody else cared, but I got a kick out of watching the HMS Intercept dismasted with chain-shot, because it was something I'd only previously read about in naval adventure books. Chain shot rocks! Give 'em a whiff of chain-shot, arrr!
I should note, for the record, that Lauren says Keira Knightley is sickeningly beautiful, and we all concur. (She looks like Natalie Portman, and was her double in Attack of the Clones, and also can act. She has grown her hair long since Bend It Like Beckham and looks better for it.)
We talked in the mall parking lot after. I found it touching and a gesture of good will that Janis and the people she was driving home stayed with me and Jen and talked until my parents came to pick us (me and Jen) up. She joked that she wouldn't leave two teenage girls alone in a mall parking lot, especially not with the full moon turning us into undead skeletons, though the counter-joke was that you wouldn't leave two teenage boys alone in a parking lot either, not because something terrible would happen to the boys, but because something terrible would happen to the parking lot. Lauren talked about Otakon and meeting Vash's voice actor, from Trigun. Let it be said for the record that Lauren is officially cool because she laughs at my lame jokes. We get along like fire and wood, except in a good way.
Quotes, in context and without:
Disclaimer: Quotes may be attributed to the wrong people, who may have been standing/sitting in the actual quotees' general proximity. All quotes are paraphrased. I, in a great display of narcissism, will also procede to sometimes quote myself. Alas, one of these quotes are funny anymore, and most of them are completely random. You have been warned.
~
(about one of the criminal charges made against Johnny Depp's character, Captain Jack Sparrow, in Pirates)
me: "Impersonating a cleric of the Church of England.."
Jen: In eyeshadow!
me: Johnny Depp is actually the first gay Anglican bishop!
~
Janis: You are the gayest bunch of sailors I have ever seen! Get me a new crew!
(about her school project, Moby Dick presented as ballet, complete with faux pegleg)
~
Lauren: Johnny Depp is definitely hotter. He's not like Orlando Bloom... *falsetto* "Oh, Elizabeth!!! *crying noises*
(in reference to Orlando Bloom's wussy crybaby character in Pirates of the Caribbean)
~
Jen: We shall combine the French and the German language to get.. GRENCH! A language that is strangely angry yet effeminate!
me: They'll invade Poland, and then immediately surrender!
~
Jen: I was saying things out of the German phrasebook. Ruchita yelled, "Stop threatening me!" (mock tone of injured bewilderment) But I was just asking her if she'd like to buy a train ticket....
~
2001 Space Odyssey on Monday night, all in good company at Mike's house: Janis and Lauren again (who seem inseperable), Silvia, Malex, Valex, Nick, Rob, Erica (it was pleasant seeing her again so soon) and a Bivalve I suspect is Arthur, who I never got to know well in high school.
It was a funny movie, though not intentionally. Only because it was so easy for us to poke fun at the prospect of a HAL9000/Frank/Dave menege a trois. Oh yes, and the monkeys. It was a good party movie because of the artsy weirdness; plus, it had great thematic swathes of total silence, so we could punctuate it with our witty and banal conversation.
Quotes:
Valex: God, that's good! (in response to Malex groping him)
~
*PS: I indeed do know who Erol Flynn is. Please don't kill me.
Pirates was absolutely hilarious. Movie critics seem to give it less credit than it is due, because they compare it to every single pirate movie released in the last 40 years (C'mon! Erol who??). See though, I was born in 1985 and had fun, you old farts. Yes, all the characters are cliches. Yes, not everything makes sense and many things are contrived. Yes, it is a movie inspired by a theme park ride. But it's not a theme park ride I've ever been on, and if people hadn't told me it was based on the ride, I'd never have made the connection. Unoriginal maybe, but everything's fresh to a new generation.
Constant debate between me, Janis, Jen and Lauren over who is hotter; Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom. I maintain that Orlando Bloom looks like a mishappen potato; Janis says that I'm just calling him the ugliest thing that I can think of and that he does not really remind me of a mishappen potato or any related tuber; but no, there are uglier things than mishappen potatoes; Orlando Bloom honestly does look like a one (potato). Janis helped me sort out the plotholes in Pirates also. We had a really long discussion about the physics of shooting forks from cannons, the weight of gunpowder vs the weight of cannonballs vs the weight of forks, the relative motion of a ship required to smack Orlando Bloom with a yard-arm, the effectiveness of a warship crewed by two people, and the appropriateness of mooring a rowboat at a ship's stern. (Janis remembered something about it in Moby Dick; apparently it is there to help men who fall overboard.) Random note: Probably nobody else cared, but I got a kick out of watching the HMS Intercept dismasted with chain-shot, because it was something I'd only previously read about in naval adventure books. Chain shot rocks! Give 'em a whiff of chain-shot, arrr!
I should note, for the record, that Lauren says Keira Knightley is sickeningly beautiful, and we all concur. (She looks like Natalie Portman, and was her double in Attack of the Clones, and also can act. She has grown her hair long since Bend It Like Beckham and looks better for it.)
We talked in the mall parking lot after. I found it touching and a gesture of good will that Janis and the people she was driving home stayed with me and Jen and talked until my parents came to pick us (me and Jen) up. She joked that she wouldn't leave two teenage girls alone in a mall parking lot, especially not with the full moon turning us into undead skeletons, though the counter-joke was that you wouldn't leave two teenage boys alone in a parking lot either, not because something terrible would happen to the boys, but because something terrible would happen to the parking lot. Lauren talked about Otakon and meeting Vash's voice actor, from Trigun. Let it be said for the record that Lauren is officially cool because she laughs at my lame jokes. We get along like fire and wood, except in a good way.
Quotes, in context and without:
Disclaimer: Quotes may be attributed to the wrong people, who may have been standing/sitting in the actual quotees' general proximity. All quotes are paraphrased. I, in a great display of narcissism, will also procede to sometimes quote myself. Alas, one of these quotes are funny anymore, and most of them are completely random. You have been warned.
~
(about one of the criminal charges made against Johnny Depp's character, Captain Jack Sparrow, in Pirates)
me: "Impersonating a cleric of the Church of England.."
Jen: In eyeshadow!
me: Johnny Depp is actually the first gay Anglican bishop!
~
Janis: You are the gayest bunch of sailors I have ever seen! Get me a new crew!
(about her school project, Moby Dick presented as ballet, complete with faux pegleg)
~
Lauren: Johnny Depp is definitely hotter. He's not like Orlando Bloom... *falsetto* "Oh, Elizabeth!!! *crying noises*
(in reference to Orlando Bloom's wussy crybaby character in Pirates of the Caribbean)
~
Jen: We shall combine the French and the German language to get.. GRENCH! A language that is strangely angry yet effeminate!
me: They'll invade Poland, and then immediately surrender!
~
Jen: I was saying things out of the German phrasebook. Ruchita yelled, "Stop threatening me!" (mock tone of injured bewilderment) But I was just asking her if she'd like to buy a train ticket....
~
2001 Space Odyssey on Monday night, all in good company at Mike's house: Janis and Lauren again (who seem inseperable), Silvia, Malex, Valex, Nick, Rob, Erica (it was pleasant seeing her again so soon) and a Bivalve I suspect is Arthur, who I never got to know well in high school.
It was a funny movie, though not intentionally. Only because it was so easy for us to poke fun at the prospect of a HAL9000/Frank/Dave menege a trois. Oh yes, and the monkeys. It was a good party movie because of the artsy weirdness; plus, it had great thematic swathes of total silence, so we could punctuate it with our witty and banal conversation.
Quotes:
Valex: God, that's good! (in response to Malex groping him)
~
*PS: I indeed do know who Erol Flynn is. Please don't kill me.
Been reading "The Fall of Berlin 1945" by Anthony Beevor, which is historical nonfiction. Would like to finish it before the end of summer on the 23rd for me, because I won't have time to do scholarly reading outside my actual schoolwork, and will resort to reading trashy Terry Goodkind novels like the post-teenage fantasy dork I am. Anyway, this book has good quotes:
Suddenly someone shouted above the noise, "Silence!" We saw a small dirty soldier with two Iron Crosses and the German Cross in Gold. On his sleeve he had a badge with four metal tanks, which meant that he had destroyed four tanks at close quarters. "I've got something to tell you," he shouted, and the carriage fell silent. "Even if you don't want to listen to me, stop whingeing. We have to win this war. We must not lose our courage. If others win the war, and if they do to us only a fraction of what we have done in the occupied territories, there won't be a single German left in a few weeks." It became so quiet in that carriage that one could have heard a pin drop.
..and also...
A deserter from the 500th Straf Regiment told his interrogators the well-known Berlin remark, 'The only promise Hitler has kept is the one he made before coming to power. Give me ten years and you will not be able to recognize Germany.'
Suddenly someone shouted above the noise, "Silence!" We saw a small dirty soldier with two Iron Crosses and the German Cross in Gold. On his sleeve he had a badge with four metal tanks, which meant that he had destroyed four tanks at close quarters. "I've got something to tell you," he shouted, and the carriage fell silent. "Even if you don't want to listen to me, stop whingeing. We have to win this war. We must not lose our courage. If others win the war, and if they do to us only a fraction of what we have done in the occupied territories, there won't be a single German left in a few weeks." It became so quiet in that carriage that one could have heard a pin drop.
..and also...
A deserter from the 500th Straf Regiment told his interrogators the well-known Berlin remark, 'The only promise Hitler has kept is the one he made before coming to power. Give me ten years and you will not be able to recognize Germany.'
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