In non New-York News:

1) As of Saturday, we now have Dish Network, since my dad wants to watch the Golf Channel. Which means, for the first time in my life, I have cable.

2) Italian choral concert was kinda blah for me. I came really late (4:40) and paid $8 for a dinner (it would've been $3 if I had made reservations) which I didn't get to finish (to my satisfaction anyway since finishing in all you can eat meals is subjective) before rehearsal, and I didn't get to socialize cuz people were already in rehearsal. Went to rehearsal. Madrigals, Resonance, and Testostertones the stars of the actual show as usual, sounded great, as usual. I didn't really care. We went, I got stuck in the soprano section after intermission despite asking people several times "What voice range are you?" with answers being "Oh, it doesn't matter." Bah. I can't sight-read for shit with singing and rely on listening to other people around me sing, so it didn't work well. Didn't sing/sang soprano part/sang alto badly, meaning all my rehearsal time was worth diddly. Won a "Kinkade print," Moonlit Sleight Ride at the silent auction for $6, then discovered it was basically a piece of cardboard with a pencil sketch over it. (When I think "print" I want like a poster dammit, in all its lovely glossiness.) Bah. Raised money for Italy though. But I'm not going. Bah.

Felt sorry for Malex not selling his dinner, but don't think he can really justify charging $75 for a meal cooked by a high school senior with no reputation, served at his house. It may be inspired by the Inn At Little Venice, but if I were inspired by Jenna Jameson still no one would pay to see me in porn.

3) Blood drive + heavy menstruation = eek.

How bad? Weelllll... I don't believe Pharoah would appreciate me going anywhere near the River Nile in the next few days.

The blood drive was nice though. Not painful or even gross to watch. I was kind of detached from it; I didn't think of it really as my blood, and anyway, it's not like you could really see it graphically squirting all over the inside of the bag, which was the case when I went in for blood testing for the first time, the first time I'd ever had my blood sucked out by a needle. (This was my first time donating, with the chief differences being the forms you fill out and the size of the needle and the amount of blood they take.) Also, the people didn't have to jab me with the needle repeatedly to find my vessels this time either, though they did a lot of Concerned Whispering and poking my inner arm with their fingers looking for a vein. I got light-headed after they finished though and I saw pretty colors. On the plus side, ate lots of tasty shortbread, have free t-shirt and stickers. Got some punariffic stickers orginally, like a sticker with a dalmation saying "I was SPOTTED at the blood drive!!!!!" and then just threw them away because they were too lame to live. Overall though, it makes me feel like a good person. It makes up for me not going to Choral Day, which I was lukewarm about in the first place.

4) I need to reap in my services hours with Archaeology and Concert Choir.

Friday in New York:

Woke up, before the wake-up call, to find the day cold and clear. Stayed in bed, pleasantly, for 20 minutes before having to actually wake up wake up. Was glad to have a new pair of socks after the wetness of the day before, got dressed, went downstairs. Found Malex, plus Andrew in his Indie hat, Rob, Lizzie, Sarah and Karina and hit the Greek (?) cafe across the street which was not fancy but very filling in the way that solid plain food is. We did some minor souveneir shopping, but didn't find much interesting.

And off to Sony Tech labs, which was extremely trippy. We were inside a sunny public plaza made of granite, which was designed to look like you were outside though you weren't, with high-set skylights and vines and patio furniture, and welcoming robot and a very cool bullet elevator. After waiting in line for a long time, amusing ourselves with rock paper scissors, and then a few badly run games of Animal Vegetable Mineral, we took the elevator up to a dark and star-filled room (really, just wallpapered with black cloth and white pinpoint lights) that led into the exhibits after we "logged in." It took a badly lit photo of us and a voice recording and saved it on our card, so in later exhibits we could manipulate the freakish photo and sound clip. There were some activities inside... saw this short film "Goodnight Tokyo" which existed just to show off their high-definition theater. I was very impressed though. It was all very.. high definition. Me and Rob looked at clips from historically important movies, and went, among other things, on a simulated trip through the digestive system and tried to clean up a simulated oil slick. We were fairly put out to find that the welcoming robot in the plaza was actually controlled by a human ("Nooo! The robot isn't real!!!!"), who looked at the people downstairs through a camera mounted on the robot and talked through a mic. It was fairly lame, aimed for younger children, but presented very well, so that it was a good experience over all.

We went to Times Square, in all its blazing glitz and glory, passing in succession St. Paul's Cathedral, the Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, and NBC studios and a street hosting lots of plays which I guess was Broadway but I'm covering my ass if I'm wrong. Times Square is a great place to be in, though it looks more like a triangle. Everything moves and blinks and shines and flashes and glows, and the giant cup of Ramen Noodles really steams and the Nasdaq ticker tape really tickers, red on black, and in general advertising has been elevated to a great artform. It's fantastic. The ground rumbled with the subway below us; if you live in Manhattan you must get used to the rumbling- it was there during the Fed, (I had thought, not seriously, that it must've been like those basement minecarts in Gringotts but turns out I wasn't half wrong) and during dinner the night before. We went shopping at Virgin Records, and ate at an Italian dive off of TS, and went through the nifty revolving doors into the greatest Toys R US in Manhattan, which has an indoor ferris wheel with chaser lights and screaming children. We, unlike last year's class, didn't bump into the Naked Cowboy, but we did encounter two Veg Girls, who, as the giant, lush airbrushed sign hovering above the Square demonstrated, sexy women hired by the PETA to protest meat-eating.. by wearing only strategically placed lettuce. And eating hamburgers, though I didn't think PETA hired them to do that. There were also some camera crews there. We didn't bother them.. much. Some people had their pictures taken with a cop. I didn't find it extraordinary. We also passed a swarm of Musicians on Strike, with signs and picketing in an orderily manner behind a metal fence against/with a group of Spanish instrumentalists playing on the sidewalk. It was amusing, and made national news, as I heard later.

Then, onto the subway, where we couldn't manage to all get on one train, since the doors did close on us. We waited for a while in the rich chords of a guitarist on the opposite platform, who was drowned out every once in a while by passing trains. I would have tossed him money, but my arm was not that good. We got off at the financial district, or fairly close to without the World Trade Center station anymore, and out, in South Side Manhattan where you can see the sea, unblocked by buildings and flat and clear to the horizon. We got to the Commodities Exchange building, waited a while sitting on the window sill when lo and behold, the curtains automatically rose behind us, dazzling us with sunlight. That was our cue to go further in, and we did. We rushed into the bathroom, timing people for the fastest time (39 seconds for the guys, 41 for girls I believe) so we could all have a go. A whirlwind tour of the history of the exchange, with really cheesy plaster reconstructions, and then, the cream of the crop, the ComEx trading floor.

It looked like a 24-hour party. With crowds of people in rainbow colored clothes gathered around pits waving and yelling, and big screen tvs situated all around the trading floor, and index cards being whipped like ninja stars into the pits and the ticker tape racing around the upper edges of the room and numbers and letters flashing on the LCDs. It all became more frantic and wound up as it edged towards closing time, until the horn/bell(?) sounded for closing time and paper burst into the air all around the pits like gunshot confetti at New Years. What a job.

A race, for us, then, through Battery Park (which I'd never seen frosted in snow) so we wouldn't miss our boat. Into the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, where pigeons nested in the lights, and onto the boat, where me and Malex went outside to watch the Manhattan skyline, sans two towers, slide away, and to watch Ellis island and the Statue of Liberty approach us and then pass us by on our right. It was winter, and the seagulls didn't dip and race along the side of the boat as I remembered them doing four years ago. But times are different, anyhow.

As we were approaching Staten island, I snapped a picture of Malex standing on the stairs with the sign reading "No standing on the stairs until ferry has docked," which it hadn't. That's an explanation of the photo for posterity. Just a little joke which no one will ever understand.

And then it was the bus. For "Fletch" and "Men in Black," two lackluster movies, and when we were in Maryland, I was glad to be home.

Thursday in New York: A Blog in the Form of Edited AIM Transcript.


shpachee: how was ny

SFX 87: great.

shpachee: tell me about it

SFX 87: I dunno what to say. You need to see Blue Man Group. they really kickass. I mean they really kickass.

shpachee: you've seen them live?

SFX 87: YAH.

shpachee: WHOAAAA

SFX 87: DUDE.

shpachee: DUUUUUDE

SFX 87: YAH.

shpachee: what did they do

SFX 87: DUDE WELL..they had glow in the dark paint in their drums so when they hit it it'd go FOOOSH and they played plastic tubes.. and we played with toilet paper, which was really fun. like they turned on the black lights so the toilet paper was glowing, and they had like four rolls attached to this balcony and people in the back grabbed it and would pass it on to the people in front of them so there would be like these giant glowing globs of toilet paper converging on you.

(editing note: We also wore protective ponchos, in the front row against squirting banana cream, which glowed purple in the light, and there were rotating glowing plastic tubes above us, and plastic glowing tubes with water-tornadoes. Very trippy.)

shpachee: yeah i've seen them do the drum/paint thing lol!

SFC 87: but also they had the strobe light on so I'd miss the toilet paper sometimes..and the music was rilly great. it was very ravery. I wasn't expecting it to be ravery.. I thought it'd be kinda new-age like those intel commercials.
but it wasn't. It was ravery. With lots of glowy things. it was trippy. i guess it sounds kinda stupid when I talk about it. I mean, they had various sketches and stuff too
Like comedy skits in between. They wouldn't talk but they wore LCD screens on their backs with dialogue which doesn't sound exciting, but they were funny.

shpachee: oooh@

SFX 87: also, they took a dude and strapped him by his legs and painted him blue and swung him by a rope so that he smacked this giant piece of canvas and made a living painting.

shpachee: ooh i've seen that before too. i keep seeing blue mans gorup on tv. oit's great. i think when they did that on tv though. they used a celebrity

SFX 87: yah. I saw it on tv so I didn't find it that exciting

shpachee: ohh

shpachee: yeha i think they should come up with new things to do cuz it just sounds like the same things i saw back like two years ago or osomethin

SFX 87: like with the skits they had three posters, and the posters would say 'pick a poster to read and stick with it' and every five seconds or so they'd flip the page (cuz it was like a giant notepad but with posters)

shpachee: LOL

SFX 87: so that there'd be no way you could read all three posters at the ssame time

shpachee: hey do they talk EVER

SFX 87: and the posters would say things like "don't you know that the time you've spent reading this poster could be spent on other posters" or "the odds you've read only this one poster for the last 5 rounds is 4441515 to 1"

SFX 87: no, they don't. they seemed really anti-internet though in the skits that had a point but they did it in a good way. oh, and they had little video clips and stuff too.
like they'd mix their musical pieces with comedy skits and random video clips.

shpachee: ohh i haven't se nthose but why were you guys seeing them anways

SFX 87: no reason.

shpachee: was it supposed to be educational or something

SFX 87: no, but it was at 7 at night anyhoo. we spent all our school hours being edumacational. we visited the Federal Reserve Bank and the New York vice president of the bank talked to us.

(editing note: The Bank impressed me immensely. Though I live in a suburban bubble in the richest county in America, and am used to luxury, indulgence and comfort, am not at all accustomed to grandeur and gravitas. I don't know very much about economics, but spent my time in awe at the architecture and interior design, looking at the bronze classical statue of a man with a lyre, the oak conference table and paneled woodwork and leather chairs with brass studs in it, and the gothic ceiling vaults with their chained medievalist chandeliers in wrought iron [the massive amount of chains and chandeliers and spiked gates made me comment to Malex that the bank looked like an S&M dungeon, causing HIM to make a rather horrid pun about bondage... get it..? Bondage... gah. On the plus side, during the tour I got my little "briquette" of shredded money as a souveneir. I thought it was neat.)

We got to look at this dumb exhibit on the history of coins. Actually, it was pretty cool, but dumb compared to blue man group.

(editing note: Educational fact of the day - coins were historically made through casts or stamps, aka mints. Casts, like in China, allowed for much faster coinage but wasted more metal. I thought it was nifty how historical coins could be like giant plates, or really really thin. Or really really weird, like shell shaped coins, or giant stone coins.)

and we got to look at their shitload of gold they kept in the basement that made me flip out. I was like.. "goooollld! goolllld!!!" cuz like ONE bar was worth like several million dollars you know? I scratched some bars with my nails but it just broke my nails. cuz the VP dude was joking "you should scratch the bars with your nails and see if you can get gold dust" and I thought it was worth a try. But gold's not as soft as it's all cracked up to be. anyhow, they're really accurate in weighing the things anyhow.

(editing note: I was actually fairly numb to all the gold initially when we went five stories down from ground level to the basement, because it just looked like so many piles of shiny yellow bricks it didn't really register. I actually thought it looked kind of fake, though I knew it was real... but I could reach through the metal grate and touch it, which is when I flipped out.)

shpachee: LOL that's awesome. so how much gold was there really? you know gold is soft, meaning it's bendable

SFX 87: hum. More than Fort Knox. But it's not all our gold see. A lot of it belongs to other countries. yeah. but not softer than my fingernails unfortunately

shpachee: not that it's gonna scratch off

SFX 87: right. the dudes who work there have to wear these magnesium shoes so if they drop the gold while they're transporting it they don't like.. break their toes. "AUGH MY FOOT!"

(editing note: Magnesium! Lighter than aluminum, stronger than steel... better than mithril, and burns dramatically... *notescribble*.. v. good fantasy metal. Shall be, in fiction, forging magic swords out of it real soon. I also thought it would suck to work in the Fed vault.. I mean, you spend all your time handling gazillions of dollars and then you go home every Friday with your minimum wage check.)

SFX 87: Also. The door to the vault is 8 feet thick steel. I was wondering how they'd do that.

(editing note: I was contemplating to Andrew the idea of seperated shifting plates, since he'd brought up that 8 feet of steel is impossible to manipulate all at once, and must be made of plates fused together. Funner idea: seperated shifting plates that open vertically... so that when the vault door closes, it slams into the ground like a portcullis. Pity the man trapped under that.)

But what it was was.. it was this giant metal cylinder with a passage through it. So to let people through they'd rotate the cylinder so that the passage would match up between the door leading into the vault and the door leading out.

(/end convo)

Ingenious. So, how was my day?

To begin again...

It started with a long, four hour busride, sitting with Rob watching Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark (which traumatized me as a kid with the melting-skull-Nazi). He industriously finished Farewell to Arms. It did not prevent him from asking finicky questions like, "Why are the snakes still alive in the pit after having been buried for the last 3000 years?" I suggested reproduction and then subsequent cannabalism, but anyhow. Raiders. Good movie. Bad Nazis. We drove past Ground Zero. I had thought it was a parking lot until it was pointed out, so there wasn't as much emotional impact as I thought there would be. We had a very rushed lunch at Southstreet Seaport, very much like Baltimore's, and were sent out into the driving snow along Wall Street, humming the Indiana Jones theme around Andrew who had the misfortune of wearing an Indie hat. It was a dumb joke that would last both days.

Up north, snow was aggressive and stung our faces. It was very angry snow and it hurt. After hitting the Fed, we invaded a Starbucks, then Trinity Church, a beautiful, peaceful place that was once the tallest building in New York, though now it's dwarfed by other things. Both Lizzie and I remembered it from Time and Again, and I from my eighth grade New York trip. Going inside and looking up between the tree-like columns (a throwback to paganism, Andrew noted, apologizing in advance for blasphemy) made it feel like the tallest building again. We looked at baptismal fonts, stained glass, chapels and statuary, all under an aegis of serenity. Outside, there were old, snow-dusted gravestones we could hardly read ("Here Lies William... who?") through the bars of the fence (the graveyard was closed to visitors). We were late to meet up with the rest of the groups because we'd misheard the times so they were mad at us for making them wait in the cold. It was the only time church has ever made me late for anything.

We took the metro (subway) to Grenwich Village, trekking through slush. No one was in the mood for shopping, so we dived into the NYU law school bookstore to do some reading and were quickly bored. We plopped down at a cafe down the street the clerk recommended and camped there, reading the Times for about an hour before dinner.

Dinner at the Times Cafe (elsewhere). A very calm.. relaxing.. BIG.. (too much) dinner with an entire group of friends. (Malex, Andrew, Rob, Sarah G, Karina, Lizzie). We took two hours. It was very nice, and something I think we ought to do more often.

Then.. Blue Man Group... then.. the hotel, a shower, Rob telling me that everyone in his room was busy getting ready for bed and to please stop harassing him at night, me rooming with random people who wouldn't shut up and let me (or the people next door) sleep, and then bed, and then unconsciousness.

Good night, good night. Sweet dreams to the sound of traffic.

At dinner last night, my sister (Stella) announced that she's expecting. Woohoo! I'm gonna be an aunt in September!

I love oil paints. They're marvelous: I, the naive colored-pencil user, never realized until now that colors could be mixed and smudged so brilliantly, though they make a mess of my hands.

I don't mind scrubbing up afterwards: these days I'm always looking for excuses to soak my hands in the soothing warmth of hot water.

I went for a walk in Rock Creek Park as snow fell. It was silent, except for the sound of the water rushing in torrents, and white but for black trees and black rocks, and I think I understand why Robert Frost, with miles to go before he sleeps, took a moment to stop and wonder.

However, I had not, on going there, taken into account that even though this current snow shower had only produced a slight dusting so far, like six inches of snow were already on the ground from the Blizzard. People had already tramped through it over and over, making the trail look like rutted cobblestones. The snow had then refroze again, basically leaving a cemented trail of crisscrossing pits and gashes of varying depths (six inches or more), leaving me stumbling around, and unable to simultaneously admire the scenery as I walked. I did, upon stopping every once in a while to look around, notice a bunch of rabbit tracks, and deer tracks which looked like they'd been created by a psycho on a pogo stick (I don't know, maybe they had). It was much easier to just stay in someone's ski tracks, or run across the top the virgin snow off-trail like Legolas, which was possible because the upper crust was frozen solid. Sometimes, if I stood in one place too long, the crust would crack and I'd sink calf-deep in snow and it'd get all in my boots. Quite a mess, really. Other times, the icy crust would hold, but I'd slip on it and leave Angie-shaped craters in the snow.

This is the most profound thing I've seen in a long time.

Ah, lots of playing of Super Smash Brothers with Malex during the Blizzard of '03. And frying dumplings, but mostly, lots of playing of Super Smash Brothers. I tried it out again, by myself.

Apparently, I can unlock Falco as a bonus character if I beat the game with all the normal characters. Hurrah! More mindless video gaming soon to come!

Happy unstressed post-IA period... and our orals are cancelled! Whoopie!

New York trip on the March 6-7. Niiiice. Rob and Malex are going, as far as I know, but I don't know who I'm rooming with because I have no female friends in Econ who're going. I just signed up randomly.

I think it's quite possible to fight for peace and fuck for chastity, as the saying goes.

It's certainly been done: I was reading an article about crimes committed against civilians during World War II. Women in Berlin (towards the end of WWII) would prostitute themselves to one Russian soldier so that he would protect her from being gang-raped by a group of them. People call "peacekeeping" soldiers hypocritical for fighting to prevent more intense and extended periods of violence, but would people tell these women who have suffered so much the same thing?

I saw Mimi in stat wearing a pin that said this: "War doesn't determine who's right, but who's left."

I have something of a problem with this line of logic, which is as follows:

1) The winner of a war is the group that is best at making war, not the group that is morally superior.
2) The outcome of a war does not determine moral superiority.
3) Therefore, we should not go to war to show that we are morally superior.
4) War is never morally justified.

My logic is as follows.

1) The winner of a war is the group that is best at making war, not the group that is morally superior.
2) The statement above can be applied to any other contest of skills. The winner of a pie eating contest is the group that is best at eating pie, not the group that is morally superior.
3) The outcome of a pie eating contest/war does not determine moral superiority.
4) Therefore, we should not enter a pie eating contest/war to show that we are morally superior.
5) However, many other reasons besides demonstrating moral superiority justify entering a pie eating contest. ("I was hungry, I wanted to see if I could do it, pie contests are my hobby, etc.")
6) Many other reasons besides demonstrating moral superiority justify entering a war.
7) Ex: "I am entering this war to stop the advance of Nazism and the murder of thousands of people." In this case, someone is going to war to prevent the fulfillment of something he/she considers immoral.
8) Entering a war for this reason is the equivalent to: "I am attacking this man because he is mugging an old lady and I want to stop this."
9) It is not the equivalent to: "I am attacking this man because my mighty fist will show him that mugging old ladies is wrong."
10) Therefore, entering a war to stop or prevent immoral actions is not the same as entering a war to prove moral superiority.
11) While war does not prove moral superiority, people can still wage war for other moral reasons.

I realize that of course there are many other issues such as: Is a war morally justified? Is it morally justified to send other people? Is it morally justified despite the civilian casualties? If we're so concerned about morality how come we're only dealing with the issue right now?

So it isn't black and white by any means. I still have no opinions about Iraq except that if we do go to war I would support it. I don't know the politics or economics of it. But ideologically, I think in general that saying "War is never justified" through said reasoning is flawed.

Mindlessly running up and down the stairs mindlessly running up and down the stairs mindlessly running up and down the stairs mindlessly running up and down the stairs mindlessly running up and down the stairs

God I'm bored.

>From: Valla Bernhardt
>To: "'mbonnan@hotmail.com'"
>Subject: RE: sauropod necks again>Date: Fri, 16 Jul 1999 11:28:04 -0500>


>Firstly, Matt, thanks for once again echoing my skepticism of a scientific
>article. :-)>However, I do have a question....>

> >> What if Barosaurus didn't rear? Is the mammalian way
> > of mating (i.e., rearing up) the only way to mate? <<> >
>I may be compleatly insane for this, but I can't quite imagine another way
>for them to do it, aside from external fertilization which doesn't seem >like
>it would work well amongst incredibly large land vertebrates.
>Any theories? Or is that too bizarre?>>

To: vbernhardt@dallas.clarkbardes.com
Subject: On rearing to mate (was RE: sauropod necks again)
From: "Matthew Bonnan"
Date: Sat, 24 Jul 1999 11:07:30 PDT
Cc: dinosaur@usc.edu
Reply-To: mbonnan@hotmail.com
Sender: owner-dinosaur@usc.edu


Well, I'm not an "expert" by any means on reproduction (take that however
you like =) ) but consider the fact that mammals really have nothing in the
way of tails. Mammalian tails are not the huge, powerfully muscled tails we
find in reptiles, and therefore mating by the male rearing up over on top of
the female is not "problematic" in the sense that there is no huge tail in
the way.

Furthermore, consider thyreophorans, the armored dinosaurs: stegosaurs with
spikes and plates on their backs, ankylosaurs with large armored tails and
backs. Did these animals rear to mate? No one, of course, knows the answer
to a question like that (yet), but it would be very interesting indeed if
they did!

I don't have a source, but I've been told that some cammels have a situation
where the female lays sideways on the ground, and the male mates her from
above. Maybe sauropods used a system like this? Maybe sauropods used
water, and lay side by side with their underbodies facing each other? How
did they get their big tails out of the way of their vents? Was there an
integumentary structure that allowed sperm to travel to the female's vent
from the outside (a modified form of external/internal fertilization)?
It's a fascinating subject, and I know there are paleontologists out there
more knowledgeable than I on this subject, but unfortunately we are left
with a lot of speculation and very little testability. Bruce Rothschild and
David Berman (1991, Fusion of the caudal vertebrae in Late Jurassic
sauropods. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 11(1): 29-36) looked at the
tail verts of various Jurassic sauropods and noted that about 50% of them
had fused tail verts suggestive of sexual differences -- the reasons elude
me now as I haven't read the article in quite some time. You may wish to
look at that article, though, because if memory serves I think they have
other references cited in it that may be of use.

In any case, rearing to mate is not the only option available for dinosaurs
to procreate.

Matt Bonnan
Dept Biological Sciences
Northern Illinois University

Well, now you know.

Blackbat2 = online friend you people don't know.

SFX 87: Oh my god, I think I've discovered the worst webcomic of all time
Blackbat2: ?
SFX 87: *crawls into a fetal position* The horror! The horror!
Blackbat2: WHERE? :D
SFX 87: Now.. don't be deceived.. the art is good.
SFX 87: But I want you to read like.. five months of this in one night, as I have..
SFX 87: http://rovana.keenspace.com/
Blackbat2: JUST LINK ME XD
SFX 87: WILL THE BAD ROMANCE NEVER STOP???
SFX 87: (it does. Five months later. Which is when the bad political bickering begins)
Blackbat2: **is reading from the beginning**
SFX 87: Which is what I did
SFX 87: see, it's not even bad for entertainment value.
Blackbat2: This is...
SFX 87: I've seen some comics that are so bad they're funny
SFX 87: but this is just bad.
Blackbat2: This is WOW
Blackbat2: XD
SFX 87: Can we give it an award or something?
Blackbat2: EEW! I cant read this. XD I'll never get my homework done
Blackbat2: How did you find this? XD
SFX 87: Link.
SFX 87: From another comic which I previously had thought was the worst webcomic ever
SFX 87: I was like, "Hmm, can't be as bad as that one"
SFX 87: also the art looked good.
Blackbat2: LMAO!!! XD
Blackbat2: You are a glutton for punishment :D
SFX 87: I need to make a site.
SFX 87: See, this artist is a fan of the other artist.
SFX 87: So I found the link through fan art.
SFX 87: the art's infinitely worse but the other one gets points for having heart, and also for entertainment value.
Blackbat2: It amazes me how you have a knack for finding the weirdest/funniest links ever. XD
SFX 87: I think I've seen worse, but not as an actually updated webcomic.
SFX 87: no, wait.
SFX 87: I've seen worse.
SFX 87: But I haven't read as much of it.
SFX 87: I wonder if I should stop reading this
Blackbat2: Like I sad - GLUTTON FOR PUNISHMENT XD
SFX 87: I've seen worse, but only drawn by my online friends. (not you)
SFX 87: "Oh no! The dolphin's dead!"
SFX 87: (paraphrasing, but you get the point)
Blackbat2: XD
SFX 87: "NOOO! NOT THE DOLPHIN!!!"
SFX 87: *angry tears* "You KILLED the dolphin!"
SFX 87: "I couldn't save him."
SFX 87: something like that. God it sucked donkey balls.

Palmer and Colton slashy fiction!

I had this dream wherein, in the new GameCube game "Mario Sunshine" (the very latest in this proud series about Italian plumbers), Mario and Mario's evil clone (in my dream, not Wario, but just someone who looked exactly like Mario but evil) became gay lovers. They didn't look like Mario... they looked like average burly mustached Italian men. They had mansex in Mario (Mario 1)'s Italian villa.

I was so freaked out.

I also had this dream wherin it was discovered that there was this new girl at RM who looked and acted exactly like Rachel M, and I was like, "Hey, have you met Rachel M?" (They weren't clones or twins; though for all intensive purposes they could've been- it's just one of those dream things where you just know stuff. They were two seperate people) And she was like, "Yeah, I she's my friend." And they met each other in the hall. And that's when I woke up, very freaked out.

You know, snow is so pretty when it's fresh, and now with blizzard conditions, the world is silent.

R&G presentations lead me to think: Most people are bad actors, aren't they? But most people don't know they're bad actors. There's this subtle difference between reading a script and acting, and even when people think they're being "emotional" in their script reading, it usually sounds very fake.

You're a Non-box.


What box do you get put in?
brought to you by Quizilla

Ah, Quizilla, you read me like a book.

Well, last week was the happiest I've been in a long time. Just living life as it is and not yearning for or fretting about something in the future, and not really regretting not being in another time. That's when I'm happiest, I think.

The only regret I have is not walking home in Monday's wild and beautiful flurries.

Well, that was last week.

My designation of weeks is rather arbitrary; being that Tuesday, the unexpected half day, was spent all on my history IA, I have marked it as the beginning of this new dreary and hellish week, the Week of the IA stretching from Tuesday to Tuesday. You know how people say that time flies when you're having fun? This is true, but time also flies when you're stuck in a suckysucksuck-fest. Amazing, I spent seven hours reading about Hitler. That does not make life better; you'd think I'd be smart enough to pick a topic that doesn't make me depressed, but no. I'm reading about the German resistance, with its optimism as frail as an eggshell... but of course, we all know how this story ends. Which makes it depressing all the more.

It just makes my life down. My day starts out well, of course, coaxed out of bed in a pleasant kind of sleepiness, and at physics, I've found that I feel at peace. A quark is a quark, and Mr. Martz has endearing quirks, and the banter is warm, friendly, casual and relaxed. School is okay, except for drawing and design where my project has ended up shittier than expected, and I'm not really up to dealing with it. And me stumbling all over my foreign language oral practice after school with Ms. Wang. It feels like I'm choking... I think in Engish; when I cease to think in English I cease to think at all, leaving my brain turning blue in the face and gasping for newer and faster thoughts as everything goes straight from my head to my mouth. And going to Fine Lines listening to the weary drone of commentary after commentary under the guise of creativity. I go, perhaps narcissically, to see what kind of response my poem will receive; I don't know if it's been commented upon already, or if it's yet to be read. And I haven't been losing any weight over the past few days. The optimistic thing about a diet is that you think perhaps you can make a permanent change for the better, and I've been daring to hope for the past week. My line of thought goes like this:

Maybe I can finally look good in a prom dress! Maybe I can flirt with people casually and not feel awkward in social situations and places with normal teenagers! Maybe I can go to Hong Kong and not feel awkward with my relatives! Maybe I can finally buy clothes that aren't 'knit shirt and blue jeans!' Maybe I can order a pretty outfit for Renfest and feel elegant and not be another 'Faire Fatass' or 'Fat Chick Who Plays D&D.' Maybe I can take acting lessons and feel confident of how I present myself on stage! Maybe I can look good in a swim suit! Maybe I can finally excel at fencing! Maybe I can finally learn how to dance! Maybe I can go jogging or biking with Malex and not slow him down! Maybe I can go to all my middle school friends now and go, hey, I've changed and you can see it. Maybe I can go to college as a new person.

Etc. And after all of that, it would seem horrible to me to just lose five pounds and then just stop. And then gain it all back again.

And above it, outside, the shrill call to arms: wielding duct tape for our windows, gas masks for our faces and canned food for god knows what, we march off to the drums of a new kind of warfare, where nobody feels the distance of a thousand miles of ocean between the Front and home anymore. Our Somme and Normandy are the walls of our own cellars. It is, as Herschel noticed, rather absurd and comical... but only if you choose to and have the strength to laugh.

I went home and collapsed into bed, not so much from lack of sleep (I went to bed at 11 last night which is good for me).

And for those of you who say that working on my IA this early will help me complete it not at the last minute: no, this is not me working early, this is very late procrastination. I am taking extensive notes on sections of both my sources (I had only been planning on taking extensive notes on my second source but found I didn't remember my first one at all well), leaving me with 400 pages (I've got 170 pages down so far) to cover by Friday night, so that I can write the actual damn paper over the weekend. The rest of you, I'm sure, are probably all done with your sources.

I am taking a mental health day tomorrow, seeing as that the Kagan quiz has been moved back to Friday. There is nothing due, not even stat homework, no tests, no quizzes.. Do not expect me; seeing as I've been expecting to see Malex for the past two days, he can wait to see me again. We're just alternating our absences; if we all take days off in shifts, we can have at least one blogbuddy at home each school day of the year, so that we're all on holiday in spirit.

I saw The Vikings today, a Kirk Douglas movie made in 1958. It's V. Good, if rather campy.

Shittiest Plan Ever: "Let's throw axes at the drawbridge!"

Which brings me to..

Shittiest Drawbridge ever: "The next drawbridge is stronger, my lord."

.. and characters...

Eric: I am Long Lost Heir to the Throne of England. I wear no pants.

Father Godwin: I have been shoved into unconsciousness!
(God, what a wuss)

Einar: ODIN! ODDDINNN!!!!

Lady Morgana: I'll never fuck you, you evil damsel-abducting heathen Viking! Oh, wait, I'll go and fuck that other damsel-abducting evil heathen Viking now. Goodbye.

Aella: Yes. I randomly keep a pit full of live wolves.

I honestly don't know why Aella is like this background villain. None of the main characters like him, and he's supposed to be the generic "cruel upsurper king" type, but he never actually upsurps anyone, and we never see him or hear of him doing anything particularly cruel beyond reason.

1. He takes the throne quite legally without knowledge of, or, obviously, malice towards this 'long lost heir to the throne' figure.

2. He arrests a traitor and tries to have him assassinated. Yes, the man is actually guilty.

3. He orders Ragnar tossed into a wolf pit. This being the Viking chief who murdered the former king (his cousin) and raped the queen.

4. He wants to toss Eric into the wolf pit for cutting the ropes around the Viking chief's hands and giving him a sword. C'mon! A sword!! But Morgana begs clemency and he cuts off Eric's hand instead.

Well.. okay. The whole wolf pit thing is rather incriminating. ... okay.. and the whole "I promised you clemency but now I'm going to kill you" thing. But otherwise!! I bet he's a kind and gentle man!! Poor Aella. He's so abused.

I think the impression we as the viewers are supposed to get is that he's an opportunist who doesn't have the moral scruples against killing inconvenient people, an impression we get not so much by his actions but by his general personality and other characters' impressions of him. (Such as the queen not liking him and hiding her son from him, the princess not liking him, so forth.) But never once in the movie does he do anything unambiguously evil that couldn't be explained quite logically from his point of view without even the need to resort to an irrational villainy rant. The Viking protagonists do more evil things, but they have 'hero' type personalities. It seems all a matter of perspective of who's a villain and who's not.

(The "vegetarian wolves" mentioned by the reviewer: actually... I think that they put the meat in so that the wolves would smell it and become hungry, for.. MAN-FLESH.. but wouldn't be able to eat it. After all, it's fairly pointless throwing a guy into a pit with non-hungry wolves. So it's not that they're vegetarian wolves and didn't eat the meat, but that the meat was intentionally pulled out before they could get to it.)

Is Einar a villain?? He's actually pretty likable, for being a scarred, monovision, axe-throwing wannabe rapist. IMHO, he's a lot worse than Aella but he's made out to be this.... if not hero.. this big protagonist character.

What about Ragnar? He's like the Jabba the Hutt of the Fjords who kills and rapes people.

BTW: Morgana (Janet Leigh) is pretty hot for a 50's chick.

Hurray for snow! The world is magical again! I made a snow angel, the first successful one I've made without ruining, in my life. The world looks like it's covered in a warm fleece blanket, and the snow sparkles like mica and crystalline dust flies in my face.

In unrelated news, I got a haircut.

All of them.

In more unrelated news, The Grand Flaming Marshmallow Balrog Contest.

My Diet Blog now has a commenting system. Yes, another blog for you to read and comment on. For some of you, I suspect it may be more interesting than my actual blog.

Janay, the girl in art, after days of being fairly silent, finally opened up when a boy came to sit at the table next to us (Shirley was absent and he took her seat.) Apparently this girl has:

1. Been pregnant multiple times and sneaked out of the house to get abortions ("It's just a pill. It doesn't hurt at all. It gross though.")

2.Taken drugs to avoid pain during the abortion.

3. Is engaged to a boyfriend of three years who is currently encarcerated.

4. Had sex with another guy while said boyfriend of three years is being encarcerated.

5. Challenged another girl to a fight and punched her in the face.

We live in two totally different worlds. What am I supposed to chat with her about? Movies? Music?

None of this is my business, except that she also wants me to draw part of her art project for her, which I politely declined to do, telling her she'd probably feel prouder of her own artwork.

I suppose she could be playing with my head, but assuming she's telling the truth. I didn't say this to her but I'll say it here: 1. Get pregnant once, it's a mistake. Do it multiple times, it's stupidity, and horrendously cruel stupidity in the cost of unborn babies. (I don't think abortion is the same as murder, but it is something rather horrific that shouldn't be done unless absolutely necessary. This.. is just caprice.) 3. Marrying a criminal is also stupidity.. I don't even understand this, because if you were stupid enough to be idealistically in love with him, why did you (4) cheat on him? Little Miss Negress, this does not reflect very well on your race. Now, I know that the logical thing to say here is that the actions of the individual reflect only on that individual and not an entire group which is arbitrarily decided by skin pigmentation in the first place. However, seeing as this is the only member of this certain race I actually come in contact with on a regular basis and therefore this member presents 100% of my contact with black people (maybe less if you count my contacts online, but that's silly), my inner racist, (who exists along with my inner bitch, my inner homophobe, my inner xenophobe, my inner imperialistic capitalistic pig, my inner communist, and my inner religious fundamentalist) is muttering about the downfall of western civilization and worse.

This also begs the question: How White/Fake Am I? I know I do live in a plastic bubble, which is rather pleasant, actually. I don't particularly dislike being a Twinkie but I dislike the label; as if I'm being two-faced or hypocritical about something. I don't see why I ought to owe any loyalties to The People's Republic Of China (*chingchongchingchong*) or some strange sense of bloodlines that crosses oceans but I don't want to feel as if I'm neglecting what my parents taught me.

Another interesting note: I had a dream once (not recently) that segregation was reinstated. I remember that the thing I was personally most upset about was being seperated from all my friends and being rather indignant about one thing: "What???!! How the hell am I colored??? Look! My skin is light!" This, in my dream, did not convince anybody. I don't think I gave a damn in the dream about black people in segregation, or even the fact that segregation was reinstated. Tres weird.

Went to Rockville Library this afternoon to pay my overdue fines (I swear, I give no money to charity but I end up giving tons to the Montgomery County libraries) and renew "Glory Season" by David Brin. V. Good so far- infinitely superior to Terry Goodkind. Don't know why I waste my time on him. I could renew online, but it's somehow more satisfying for me to see them stamp the new date in shiny black ink on that long white sticker in the back.

Also: Madrigals auditions are tomorrow. Do not think I will, because Frezzo said that most likely lunch bunchers only won't make it unless we'd had previous class experience or unless we were phenomenal sight readers. I'm very probably the worst aural sight reader in the class. I can only sing what I can hum, I can only sing on key if I can hear my own voice, even if it's the same note over and over again, something as simple as quarter eighth quarter eigth quarter eigth. And of course, I can't give myself a starting note. When I told Frezzo I could sight read, I meant with instruments. I know where to hit the keyboard on a piano when I see the note for 'A.' I don't quite understand how he took this to mean I could somehow sing.

I'm starting up my diet blog again because I'm on Atkins (have been for the last three days). Hurrah for me.

List of things I'm not allowed to eat:

Caffeine
Bread
Rice
Noodles
Fried stuff
Fruit
Dessert

Yep! It's no carbohydrates and no sugar!

List of things I can eat:

Vegetables
Meat
Dairy Products

Yay skippy. Don't try to sell me chocolate.

Mmmmm... Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in a hottub.

Anyway, now that's over with. (For my loyal readers I suppose it's yet to come. You must remember that what I post the earliest you read the latest and what I post the latest you read the earliest. So scroll down. )

I woke up at 6:40 in the morning from a dream that my mother and grandmother were screaming at me. Despite not sleeping well I was glad to be awake.

My oral went well, I think, at least for having gotten the Virginia Woolf passage on.. fishing for ideas, that extended metaphor. I was the first to go and Ms. Barret said it was a good way to start her day. However, I don't know if I actually did well, since Ms. Barret is on the whole a kind and encouraging personality independent of actual performance. When I left Alex had arrived and I arranged to have him give me a ride to Fatal Valentine since my parents would be leaving the house at 5 pm to go to a dinner party for New Year's. He agreed to pick me up at 7:30. I went to IHOP afterwards with my mom, where she told me that since they were leaving at 5 I'd have to make dinner by myself and I told her don't worry it's not like I'd starve. And later on to Best Buy where I bumped into Nick (B). He asked me if I heard about the space shuttle and I said, "It exploded?" as a joke kind of (I have come to expect the worst possible news of everything so that nothing surprises me, but on the downside it has me making rather tactless comments). I did not believe that it had honestly exploded. ("You lost a shuttle? Where did you last put it?") We listened to the news on a Best Buy radio. As it turned out, my ghastly initial intuition was correct. Nick bought a CD player.

I went home, watched the news, and stopped after the NASA press conference because there was really nothing that I felt like I had any right or need to know. An hour's worth of repetition of, "We're very saddened and are doing our best to investigate it" which was as much as any person could really be expected to do, besides wait for tomorrow. It seemed that to keep the tv on to watch people talking in low sad tones and look at endless parades of photographs would be needlessly sensationalistic.

I read some Rosencranz and Guildenstern and got annoyed because it was confusing, actually finding the lines taken directly from Hamlet to be more comprehensible. I read some Romeo and Juliet without footnotes and discovered that Shakespeare is indeed more understandable than Tom Stoppard, explanatory notes or no. I read the comics. They weren't funny, not even Prince Valiant. I took a nap, waking up intermittantly to my alarm clock buzzing. I saw the time as 5:44 and frantically smacked the alarm clock off, thinking I'd be waking my parents too early in the morning for them to drive me to school. It was actually late afternoon on Saturday.

I woke up at 7:40 in the evening to the doorbell ringing. It was Alex waiting with The Van and I spontaneously changed out of my pajamas, yelled at him that I was coming, combed my hair, stuffed $20 in my empty wallet and pocketed it, put my feet in my boots without socks, grabbed the house keys, and sprinted into the van. Alex told me that duh I wasn't supposed to get in on the driver's side. I jumped on shotgun and put on my socks. I had forgotten my cell phone at home. We rushed off to pick up Valex at Woodmont Park. We did, but not Silvia, because she "didn't ask." We got to RM at 8-ish and bought tickets and went in. It was a funny play for being a running gag wherein the actors did not enunciate, but nonetheless it was very exciting and hilarious and of course, interactive. I went around at intermission asking "romance writers" for their autographs and Malex went around hitting on the male leads. I ate some cake and that was my dinner. We went back in. We voted Martha the murderer. I heard last performance it was Flick.

Malex drove me home where there was a message on the answering machine from my mom from earlier in the evening wondering why the alarm clock hadn't woken me up and shouldn't I be awake eating dinner by now?

SNL was a rerun, but I watched it to avoid the news.

Obligatory Space Shuttle Columbia Post:

What a way to die. I wonder if it hurts to die, and how painful it must be being burned alive and ripped apart. I wonder if when people die they go to heaven instantaneously. I wonder what it must be like to die like a meteor, like a falling star, so brightly and so violently, but if it in the end would not be a way I would choose to go.

I think they will say later that the Year of the Ram was ushered in with smoke and flame and the explosion of fireworks.

Also: I am so sick of National Tragedies, but the ones I have are not anything like those of the previous generation, or the one before that. This 20th century is a string of national tragedies, stretching on into the 21st. As it were, I did not know anyone, and feel like letting those who will mourn mourn. Personal tragedies will remain deeply personal and perhaps the rather whorish title of National Tragedy and the media orgy that comes with it ought to be reserved for other things.

(/End Obligatory Space Shuttle Columbia Post)

I won't be able to watch My Fatal Valentine due to English Orals very early on Saturday morning and a Chinese New Year celebration Saturday night. My mom won't let me go on the night before my "really important" (right) orals and she won't let me back out of the dinner party. Bleck. Let's hope it snows.

"The Last Waltz" by Malcolm Mcclinton.

My schedule is all right, I guess. I am no longer capable of feeling overjoyed or disappointed, though today was nice in that it was that First Day of School feeling we never got to have on the actual first day of school. The actual first day of school was just like a resumption of junior year. Nice having physics with Malex and Andrew and Rob and Christine. Don't know why she bothered with our group, but she's sitting next to us so she's here to stay. Strangely enough, it seemed like she was always with Dena and Sharon in middle school (perhaps just for school stuff), but there's a lot less of that now. And English with Rob. Have English with Ms. Shay... she seems okay?

Anyhow, it's nice to see Rob again, after seeing him all the time last year in history and psychology and then never seeing him last semester.

Nick is being distant, and I'm not even dating him.

I have no friends in Drawing and Design... I don't even know anyone there, not even distantly. I've tried to break the ice with Shirley, the Peruvian girl sitting at my table, but I don't think we have very much in common. But at least we know each other's names and we're basically conversational; she doesn't know anyone else there either. Neither does Janet (pronounced Janay, God knows how it's spelled), the third girl at our table, but she's less social. Nonetheless, it sounds like a fun class and I hope to make projects I'll be proud of. Damn, I'm sounding like an enthusiastic suckup art student. We're doing more than shading, shading, and more shading as Malex insinuated, probably because this is second semester D&D.

This is something I wrote on a message board, but I feel it ought to go here too. This is everything I've learned through high school, from age 13 to 17.

I'm always constantly measuring myself against other people, from the person my parents want you to be, who my teachers and friends think I am, who I think I am. It's taken me a while to seperate who I am and who I project myself to be,
even to myself.

Also. As a 13 year old kid, I, unlike a 7 year old kid, knew that unicorns aren't real, Bloody Mary doesn't come to you in a mirror, not all people are noble and other fictions that society creates to tell children. Then, though, I believed in the lies that society would tell itself. Now I know that everyone has strained relations with parents (even adults), everyone feels awkward in a romantic relationship, most people don't like having their relatives around, everyone, even people I think have perfect lives, are profoundly sad some of the time. In other words, not everyone feels what they're "supposed" to feel at an occasion. It's not like life as the media would show it. It's a bit depressing to know that there are no perfect lives, but at the same time it is encouraging to know that despite imperfection, people still go on loving their parents, having romantic relationships, and trying to achieve perfect lives.

My self worth isn't dependent on my accomplishments. It doesn't matter what grades I get, what I look like, how my relationships are going- the point is that I'm inherently worth something as a person. It's taken that long to realize what my limitations are too, because when I was a kid I wanted to be and thought I could do everything, but now I know I can't.

I've learned that retaining friendships, like maintaining a romantic relationship, takes work- constant contact, and that people will float in and out of friendships not because of hatred or strain, but just because they don't talk a lot to you anymore, and it's as natural as snow melting. People change. Friends get more distant, friends get closer, new people become friends, depending on their changes and how often you spend time with them and talk. Friends aren't forever, despite when you're a teenager feeling that your friends are the people in the world who understand you most. Friends- If there's someone wittier, nicer and better looking, they'll hang out with them and not you. It's not something to take personally, but the way things are because of the nature of friendships. Friendships are based on convenience: families are for life. The reasons families are so argumentative is because they aren't just around when it's fun, they'll stand by you no matter what.

I would also venture to guess that someone at age 18 is a lot more comfortable with their own and other peoples' sexualities than when they're 13/14, when you realize that it's natural, it's normal, it's not dysfunctional (though people's comfort levels with the subject will vary).

Yah. So to hell with academics; this is what I've learned in the past four years. I still am not emotionally mature *now* and won't be for a good long time.

I have bought four used books for 25 cents each from Aspen Hill library, meaning I spent a dollar altogether. Two are really corny fantasy choose your own adventure books... like D&D for the antisocial. I bought them for amusement value. There are blank sheets in the front where you can write in your own stats. Apparently the previous owner of this book had a bow and an axe, a rope, a lantern, a potion of.. I can't read this.. lognospian?? .. a quiver with six arrows, five fireseeds, a psychic ring, a signet ring and a war hammer. I like reading other people's character sheets- it's kind of like peering into someone else's life, like in archaeology. You take a look at the inventory and it's like, this is an exact snapshot of what was in this guy's backpack five, ten, twenty years ago when some other fantasy dork was reading this book. I wonder where he is now.. college, a career, marriage, children, a house?

Also.. I have a Forgotten Realms book (first in the Avatar Trilogy; you know a book is trashy when it has an excerpt in the front) and some children's book about a guy with plague. Hurray.

Have finished Terry Goodkind's "Pillars of Creation," which, despite having a promising beginning, severely blew chunks. This is my thirty second recap of Pillars of Creation.. "I'm running away from soldiers! I'm running away from soldiers! I'm having kinky sex! I'm running away from soldiers! Oh, wait, there aren't any soldiers. The end."

And the work begins again tomorrow. I hope it will not be as busy as it was for the last three weeks.. but... I know it will, between English orals and History IA due on February 18.

Oh, I suppose you can find an account of Josh's Party elsewhere. It was fun, I guess, but not many people I usually hang out with were there, so it wasn't especially memorable. I spent the whole time grazing on nachos. Bad Angie. Oh, we also watched American Pie 2, but not officially of course. I, with my Samelessly Conformist tastes, found it to be hilarious.

What the hell? Malex's Evil Italian Clone.

This is what's up with me.

Frezzo wants me to take Concert Choir as a class next semester, but I really want to take Drawing and Design. It's probably my only to chance to take an actual drawing course.. as in, someone actually instructing me, not me reading some book or something, and should help me improve leaps and bounds even if according to Malex there's not much to it. I'll at least benefit from the practice, and stuff stolen from the art supplies, and I've never used charcoals before. It feels like if I don't take a course at least some time in my life, I'm going to be continuing to slog through Drawing Medocrity for a good long time. I know I'll have a lot of opportunities outside of next semester in my life to take a drawing class, but I'm afraid I'll simply never get around to it, like I've never gotten around to taking horseback riding, mountain climbing, skating, skiing, weaving baskets, and writing The Great American Fantasy Novel. (ha) I like CC but not that much; truthfully, the only reason I'm in it is because I feel horribly lonely when people start spontaneously singing in the halls and in class and at parties and stuff. It seems like everybody knows the same songs except for me. I don't know how to tell Frezzo though; it sounds kinda wrong. "Gee, I don't really like singing, I'm just doing it because my friends are doing it."

Saw Gladiator last night, rented by my dad. V. good movie. Have now been initiated into the enjoyable world of R rated violence.

("The Cube" does not count as enjoyable)

Learned how to use Microsoft Xcel this afternoon. Am V. productive, but still happy. I suppose it wasn't very good that I was doing "due on on Friday January 24" physics labs on Xcel today, but anyhow. Done is done, and I'm still happy.

Am going to Josh's party in an hour. I feel kinda guilty about this, because I was walking down the hall in skool with Malex and Josh was passing out little papers, and he gave one to Malex and I sorta took one before seeing it was an invitation and thinking, whoops, it's sorta his prerogative to give one to me. I invited myself to his party. Blah. >_< There really isn't a graceful way to give it back. Wonder who'll be there. Also hope his house ain't cold. Malex says (or this is something he would say): YOUR MOMMA'S HOUSE AIN'T COLD LAST NIGHT! Anyhoo.

Bumped into Rachel Jackson while buying hot chocolate at Ben and Jerry's. She's my friend from elementary school, and she was going to watch Drumline with some friends at the Regal. She had to get going because the movie was starting but we exchanged contact info.

Kind of a weird experience.

Walked to Rockville library this afternoon to pick up Terry Goodkind's "Pillars of Creation." Good book, but easy to make fun of- I have labeled some of the chapters, which are currently only numbered, by my general impressions and by the vast quantity of bodily fluids described.

Chapter 1- Oh Those Dark But Seductive Voices In My Head: Graphic Descriptions of a Dead Man
Chapter 2- Sexual Tension: Burying a Dead Guy And Looting His Body
Chapter 3- Four Pages: Nothing Happens
Chapter 4- She's So Perfect: Sappy Family Scene
Chapter 5-Exposition, Dinner, and Freezing Rain: Generic Herbs For Every Medical Necessity
Chapter 6- Expendable Characters: Artistic Blood Spray and Severed Body Parts
Chapter 7- What The Fuck: Bastard Angst, Squirming Farm Animals, and Frozen Poo.

That's as far as I've gotten.

I have obscene amounts of party food at home due to my dad throwing an office party and bringing home the leftovers. My mom won't have to cook for like a week. The sad thing is, it's actually a lot healthier than what I normally eat. Mmmmm, tasty!

Am chatting with Matthew G, an old friend from Eastern who recently commented on my blog again. Who has a major vendetta against Seth for him being a jerk to his friends. It's kind of weird.

You know what I did on Friday afternoon? I spent fifteen minutes staring at a shrubbery. It was rather extraordinary, or maybe I'm on psychotropic drugs, but as I was looking at the shrubbery, it began to look to me like the side of a tree covered mountain. Each sprig on the shrubbery, instead of being just a sprig, was a little evergreen tree, and I could "see" birds' nests and pinecones. And very clear in my mind's eye were roads winding around the mountain which I half expected to see if I were just to part the little sprigs, and hikers appeared as pinpricks of color occasionally walking along the side of the road, overtaken by cars and buses. They would, if they had really existed, appear as flashes of light as they travelled along the sunny stretches of the road, and then go dark again as they drove under the shade. I saw birds circling over the pines, and, with my mind's eye dipping under the leafy canopy, saw mats of pine needles, underbrush and topsoil, and along the steep sections of the mountain, a grey rock face with loose sections, where occasionally a hiker would, with his shoe, dislodge some pebbles that would go pingpingping! all the way down.

But sometimes a shrubbery is just a shrubbery.

For the rest of the duration of the walk, I'd see other shrubbery, and it'd appear to me as a spreading oak hung with lanterns by which a hundred or so revellers would be eating barbecue and chatting (the children would be chasing each other) on a summer evening (it was about 3 pm after school, in reality), or I'd look at a tree and see a redwood on a knoll that could serve as a house, with round doors and windows carved into the bark, or I'd see a shrubbery that looked like a tree on a patch of hilly and cheerful farmland under which I could sit and read, or I'd see somebody's lawn and see plains shaking under the weight of a stampeding herd of bison. I lost all sense of scale- what was one inch, or six inches, could be the height of a human, or a buffalo, or a tree. It was like I was looking at a bansai world, with my mind inserting special effects.

My imagination riots against the IB.

My monitor burned out on the computer I normally use. I'm getting a new monitor (flat screen) and possibly a CD burner since they're really cheap right now at Best Buy and my parents are on a 'buying electronica' spree. In the meantime, I'm seeing if I can use my old monitor as a fish tank.

I have a.. boyfriend?

What the hell just happened? Sprouting from a random conversation. Oh, Alex, this is the guy I introduced you to. Who works for the Louisiana Renaissance festival.

SFX 87: I feel I ought to tell you that they got Bill the Pony in Rivendell in the movie.

Fiend Lich: ...

SFX 87: well you were wondering where they got him.

Fiend Lich: wow...how...crappy.

SFX 87: Well it's better than having him appear from nowhere.

Fiend Lich: *mutter*

SFX 87: *mutter*
SFX 87: I have also decided that Eomer is incredibly studly.

Fiend Lich: yep.

SFX 87: I want to have his children
SFX 87: but also Aragorn's.
SFX 87: and Legolas'

Fiend Lich: ...

SFX 87: and Faramir's.
SFX 87: So you see I'll be busy for a while.
SFX 87: I apologize in advance for even bringing up Faramir.

Fiend Lich: and theodrek's! and theodrek's!!
Fiend Lich: *ducks* :P

SFX 87: Speaking of which..

Fiend Lich: This doesn't sound like it'll bode well. :P
Fiend Lich: What?

SFX 87: Will you write me a Dating Recommendation?
SFX 87: ^__^

Fiend Lich: ...er...?

SFX 87: Just a little sheet on what a good date I'll make so I can pass it around to people.
SFX 87: I mean, obviously, I can't expect people to date me who don't even know me.

Fiend Lich: ...er...
Fiend Lich: That's not really how you should go around doing it.

SFX 87: So I bet they'll be reassured to know that other people find me to be a good bet.
SFX 87: ^__^
SFX 87: Hey, my friend has dating applications.

Fiend Lich: How crappy.
Fiend Lich: Really.

SFX 87: I've seen dating resumes too.

Fiend Lich: I've seen 12 year olds with four girlfriends.

Fiend Lich: That doesn't make it right.

SFX 87: *shrug* it's a better way than some.
SFX 87: I don't think anyone means it seriously, besides.

Fiend Lich: *rolls eyes*
Fiend Lich: Don't do sheets...
Fiend Lich: Just be yourself.

SFX 87: It is rather original, and a better method than pickup lines.

Fiend Lich: You'll find someone.

SFX 87: Eomer! :-D

Fiend Lich: Someone in your range.
Fiend Lich: Who isn't a major film star and such.

SFX 87: Well I could become a major star and balance it all out.

Fiend Lich: :P

Fiend Lich: Why not me! I'm willing! *raises hand meekishly*

SFX 87: awww..
SFX 87: *smooch* So cute.
SFX 87: ^__^

Fiend Lich: And I'm house broken!
Fiend Lich: ;.;

SFX 87: I promised not to do this online dating thing again though.

Fiend Lich: And I like to cuddle...!

SFX 87: @___@ So cute!!!!

Fiend Lich: *sniffles*

SFX 87: *whimpers*

Fiend Lich: *puppy eyes*
Fiend Lich: And I'll adore and worship you and everything!

SFX 87: @___@

Fiend Lich: *hugs your ankles* Pweese? ;.;
Fiend Lich: I...I...um...I will do breakfast in bed?
Fiend Lich: I give foot rubs...?

SFX 87: but not at the same time!
SFX 87: (breakfast in bed with foot rubs..)

Fiend Lich: Well, yes. ^_^

SFX 87: strange
SFX 87: and unhygenic

Fiend Lich: But I'll do them both seperately!
Fiend Lich: And...and...

SFX 87: @___@
SFX 87: So cute!!!!
SFX 87: *dies*

Fiend Lich: ...did I mention I like to cuddle and snuggle and generally be together? ;.;
Fiend Lich: and how what I'd really like to do is wrap myself and someone up in a blanket really tight and just cuddle and lay together?

SFX 87: except you live in Louisiana
SFX 87: unless you're travelling ectoplasm, this presents some problems.

Fiend Lich: -_-
Fiend Lich: Blah.
Fiend Lich: ...but...I like to cuddle...!! Please? ;.;

SFX 87: Uh.. (breaks out).. I'll think about it?
SFX 87: but nuthin' too serious

Fiend Lich: ;__;
Fiend Lich: okay!

SFX 87: Yay! Someone to smack around!

Fiend Lich: Just...foot rubs!
Fiend Lich: yes! you can smack me!

SFX 87: *smacks* Woohoo!

Fiend Lich: ^_^
Fiend Lich: I'll be your bitch? o.O
Fiend Lich: I don't care! ^_^;;

SFX 87: ey!
SFX 87: but no
SFX 87: Not the bitch thing. I don't like housepets.

Fiend Lich: *shrug*
Fiend Lich: Okay.

SFX 87: Random question. Would you like Ranch or House Vinagrette on your salad?

Fiend Lich: Ranch.
Fiend Lich: If available, Russian.
Fiend Lich: Or Catalina.

SFX 87: What's Russian? Vodka?

Fiend Lich: No! Salad dressing.

SFX 87: Vodka flavored salad dressing?

Fiend Lich: No alcohol.

SFX 87: okee. What's Catalina?

Fiend Lich: Salad dressing.
Fiend Lich: Red kind of. It's good, though.

SFX 87: I'll take your word for it. Never had it.

Fiend Lich: Okay.

And so forth. If you want more of the transcript, ask me. There's some stuff on.. asking for my picture, more ankle hugging, awkwardness on my side (maybe not for him), and 8 Bit Theater. I was quite grateful for this webcomic from waving me from stupid relationship awkwardness. Still don't know if I'm dating him or not. Mental Note: He seems to take jokes rather literally.

Have linked to Sharon's blog, Into The Darkness, which coincidentally is the name of a song in the Final Fantasy IV soundtrack I'm listening to right now.

I had a happy dream over Break involving Elijah Wood, Orlando Bloom, and lots of hot chocolate.

They were clothed though. In really poofy winterwear.

Attended Shakespeare club, which I am trying to make a habit (typoed 'hobbit' by accident; God I'm a dork). Condensed Shakespeare is funny. Like condensed soup, but better for you.

Thanks for bringing, Nick. ^___^

Rain-snow mixes never pan out.

Deepa hath returned.

Sarah Gordon was over joyed that she does not sound Texan.

It really is disgraceful. I mean, here we are, the greatest of men of eons ago, imbued with dark power, immortal, scary as sin and given sophisticated hunting instincts. And, thanks to that retarded little gnome Gollum, we knew right where to look. ...

The Tenth Rider

Much LotR convo today.

I was talking to Lianna before school in the library and apparently her dad used to read it to her, but only got as far as Rivendell because she was creeped out by the Nazgul. She has not yet seen the new movie.

I was disappointed. Someone tore out the LotR and Harry Potter article from the library's issue of Teen People.

Andrew Durfor covered his ears in front of me, because he didn't want to hear about our (read: my) horrible stat survey project, but I was just going to talk about LotR. He thought that Andrew Serkis should win Best Supporting Actor for his role as Gollum, horses really shouldn't be running down a 78 degree angle incline, and Gandalf should cast some cool fireballs.

Rob thought it was strange that a city as big as Edoras had only 300 men at arms and that elves from Lothlorien could arrive at Helms' Deep within half a day.

Nick B was repulsed when I brought up LotR as a subject and hid in the boys' bathroom. See, really, LotR is the only interesting thing in my life as of now. Some people live for sports, or acting, or music, or poetry, or their art. I happen to live on fantasy crap. So sue me. There are worse obsessions.

Sara (freshman on my bus) thought Shadowfax was hella cool, squealed in the theater when the wargs attacked the horses, and revealed to me that all the riders who portrayed the Ringwraiths in Fellowship are women. Apparently Legolas T2T bookmarks, which I couldn't find in the RMHS library, are available at Wood's library, but I was too wussy to waltz into some random middle school (though it is my bus stop) and grab their bookmarks.

Here's a stupid Martz story for those of you who care to add to your collection (I know there is one somewhere.) Being virtually the only one in 6th period physics who blogs, I consider myself an important contributor.

Okay.. we were watching a video about the Hoover Dam, you know, about the dam construction, the dam workers, the dam canyon, and just the whole dam project. So Mr. Martz turns on the tv and there's this guy with a guitar and another guy doing a crazy dance. And so he's reminded of:

"Last night I was watching an infomercial, and you know it was a bad infomercial because it was on really late at night. And they were selling guitars, only the guy selling it wasn't famous or anything. He was really weird, and he was wearing all black, with black sunglasses, and one of those black hats Zorro wears. You know, with the flat tops and the flat brims."

The end.

So... back to the daily grind, and it is 2003

No more bubbly for me. Being drunk sucks.

I love the Rose Parade. It seems so much more genuinely pretty and less commercialized and just cooler in general than Macy's Thanksgiving or the Disney Christmas parades.

Have expanded on the older blog posts from December the 24th, as promised. (The "later" labels being what I added.)

Nick has something like this on his blog. I wonder if that's where he got it from. Oh, the strip is from Clan of the Cats, a Wiccan webcomic. No, I'm not normally given to perusing pagan fiction, but it's quite good.

See, yesterday I was told that I'd be going to a barbecue. I was wondering how Uncle Jim would manage a barbecue at the tail end of December. I thought maybe it was one of those joke 'summer in winter' theme party things or something. But no, it was just a hotpot.

Those Chinese things where you set a pot of boiling water on a portable heater on the top of the table, and everyone sits around and tosses raw stuff into it, like thin slices of beef, stuffed fishballs, squid, shrimp, tofu, tofu skin, leafy vegetables, carrots, taro root, and noodles. You can ladle it up again from the water when it's cooked with a little wire net (there are different nets and different chopsticks for the raw and cooked foods). And you put it in your bowl, which is filled with a sauce of some sort, though at some hotpots you can crack an egg into your bowl, so that when you put the hot food into your bowl and stir it into the yolk, it cooks the egg, and you have a sort of batter on your food.

I still like barbecues better. For one thing, hotpots make me feel rather discombobulated hanging out with a bunch of old Chinese people.

Had dinner with my sisters and brothers-in-law on Christmas Eve.

You know how people are all nostalgic for home cooking?

Well, I'm not.

But all the giving of useless gifts was heartwarming ("It warms the cockles of my heart!") and amusing. Let's see. My parents got (see, except for me, all the giving and receiving was done in pairs, based on the couple) ... a pair of glass winebottle stoppers and some perfume. Stella and Jonathan got... a belt that didn't fit Stella, a cookbook, and a pair of pink handblown glass Christmas ornaments. Maggie and Dong got... a belt for Maggie that she hasn't tried on yet, and some other random glass things (more bottle stoppers, I think? Maybe they were covers for something). I got a wooden jewelry box for jewelry I don't have, and Trivial Pursuit, which I have no one to play with.

None of this will actually be used.

Still. A nice thought.

Hitting the Uptown on Thursday for the 2:50 LotR. Have bought tickets from Fandango. (Fandango!) Yes, I'm a dork. Don't give me the 'I have no time' excuses which I am sick of hearing, as blameless as you all are. :( If you can go, say you can. If you can't, say nothing.

Later

It was quite good, despite me waiting in line in the cold. I hadn't realized I'd be waiting outside in line.. bah, I'm too used to multiplexes. I had a frappacino waiting outside. But no, I did not go to the bathroom during the movie. Anyways. Ahh.. Aragorn. There was a person with a laser pointer though, so at times Theoden would suddenly be sporting a bindi. (I'm not sure how to use that word in an actual sentence, but the point is, he looked hella stupid and it was distracting). The first part of T2T was a lot less boring the second time around, and the Arwen parts no longer seemed as intrusive, and yes, the plot flowed better. I could notice more things. This was an older crowd, and more decorous (with the exception of the anonymous laser wielder) but less given to spontaneous applause.. no Legolas fangirls here to applaud for his horse-riding tricks, or his snowboarding tricks, though there were two girls wearing elf-ears. Poor Legolas. I felt like such an idiot clapping alone. Being the Uptown, it's pretty much impossible to get the whole theater clapping, like at Regal.

Oh, the Very Secret Diaries are being updated again.

GO ME!

Friday

Saw LotR, spent with Jen making comments about how many times Aragorn washes his hair and oohing at his general hotness, but also wanting to smack a certain Lisa for talking constantly during the movie (even more than I am prone to do).

Then went to get Andrew a thong at Lakeforest with Alex, Jen and Anika. Agreed on Aragorn's general hotness. More later.

Saturday

Went Mall hopping with my mom at White Flint. Happiness abounds. More later.

Sunday

Went to New York with my family for a family friend's birthday. Much more later.

Later

I love car rides. There's something about being able to see far into the distance that you don't get normally sitting still, or even with a plane, because you're so high up. Although the ground next to you flashes by there'll be a clump of trees thousands of feet in the distance that just doesn't move, as if the world were flat and turning on an axis. The sound of cars alongside you isn't one you'll find anywhere else.. not on planes or on foot, or normal driving. It's a sound of speed and thunder, (which would be a good title for a bad book). But honestly, it's a unique experience, especially if you remember that cars and highways are a very new invention given the length of human history, and very exclusive too. Because they're so common in the US people don't treat them like a novelty, but the fact that we can take something so amazing for granted makes the feat even more impressive. Also, along a highway, if you're going faster than another car and pulling past it, you can imagine that you're staying still and the other car and the rest of the world are all sliding backwards under you. It's not like planes. You can feel yourself moving, and you can see the landscape changing. And on skyways and suspension bridges where you fly over rooftops and other cars and see the whole sprawl of a city or the length of a river snaking away under you, that's more flight than watching the same motionless grid of land beside an airplane wing from a porthole for hours on end.

And of course, New York is amazing at night. I was going to Queens, but because my dad/New Yorkers are crazy drivers, we'd be shooting at 70mph through tunnels and under causeways where the speed and thunder (tm) would echo along the walls, and there would be buildings and people right above you like you were zooming through the canals of some sugar-crazy Venice at night, and you'd flash by lights, some close, some in the distance over the dark and invisible water. You can imagine that the far city is just a large plate of pinpoints of light hovering in the middle of space. And looking at the far city over the sea I was wondering what it was, until I realized from the small outline of the Empire State Building and the Chrystler Building that I was staring at the south side of Manhattan.

It no longer looks like the south side of Manhattan.

...

We went to the Terrace on the Park in Queens (which looks like a crazy giant tripod- the Terrace, not Queens), but we were delayed because my dad was afraid of driving through a 'ghetto' neighborhood at night. There was food, champaigne, dancing that looked like it belonged to an Old Folks' Cruise.... me and my parents went to a friend's house to stay the night, in suburbia which looked so much like home. I could make a left, and I'd be in Maryland again. Some people find suburban conformity to be depressing, but to me it was a comfort, though tiny, tiny things are different. When we woke up in the morning, it was snowing, and it was cold.

So, I did end up seeing Treasure Planet with just Sharon because Silvia ran off to the post office by the Regal and never joined us in the theater. It was a great movie in terms of character development. The dialogue between Jim and Silver was outstanding, Captain whatsherface is the best female Disney character I've seen in.. well, ever.. and Jim's mom.. look! A Disney character has a mom! Among the best animated films I've seen for characters.

And very pretty. The backgrounds and camera angles were mindblowing, and the designs and concepts were super cool. Of course, me and Sharon are both airship freaks.. aaahh... it's like what the Final Fantasy movie should've been like. I thought the foregrounds looked like Saturday morning cartoons, which was unfortunate because it made the trailers look like crap and hence Treasure Planet is hemorraging money as liddle kiddies go to see 8 Mile.

It's very depressing.

Zifei, my friend and a student animator at Bingham Young University was trying to convince me how the foreground animation was actually a work of genius and totally, totally unlike a Saturday morning cartoon you blashemous heathen, but I remain unconvinced.

Okay, so Silver's hand was really cool.

I just think the shot below looks dumb, and foreground shots of just the characters are typical. I mean, the back (in this case, the railing of the ship and stuff) look great. I'll take Ziffie's word for it that a lot of work went into this and that Saturday morning cartoons could never reach this amount of detail, but, as a movie watcher, not a moviemaker, would you spend $9 on a movie based on trailers that look like this?

But.. Zifei calls the above the most impressive feat of animation of all time, and I can't say I can disagree with him, so, uh, do watch the movie. Oh, all the pictures above were stolen from Pathea.com, his website. Don't steal them. Well.. I mean.. more than I have already. Blah.

No, I did not go see Nemesis. Do you know why?

Because somebody was not at the Broadway Diner at 6.. or six oh five.. or six ten... or six fifteen... or six twenty... and this same someone had also, according to a Malex at six twenty, not updated his blog about a change of plan and this same someone was also not at Potbelly's, CalTor, Ben and Jerry's, or Tara Asia. He was never at Tara Asia, according to Scott Church, who was there, but not for Nemesis. And not at the Broadway Diner at 7. I called Nick to get an answering machine and Jen to get nothing at all (since she couldn't go, I found out later, and was out with her parents).

I was rather pissed.

Apparently, Jen had called me at five, and gotten my machine. Mwahaha. Call-age.

I ended up going off to Fortune Star buffet with my parents and eating a lot of really fattening foods and a variety of sushi. And then we went Christmas shopping at Monkey Mall.

I have a new cape and a beret.

Look! I'm an artiste!

Humza reads my blog? Hmm.

Greetings.

Why Will You Go To Hell?
brought to you by Quizilla

I knew it.

Oh, Sharon.. I've been thinking of seeing Treasure Planet on Friday the Thirteenth at 2:20 at the Regal, if I can get someone to drive. Heard it's a good movie, but it's bombing at the box office, and it's very short. One hour, thirty four minutes, so we should be out by four. How's that?

LOOK, everyone! I have a new reader! It's Sharon! Since like.. three people read my blog.. this is actually something of a novelty.

No, not the Object Of Hank's Affection Sharon.

This Sharon is our resident elf. Say hello.

No school! RAWWWK!

The trees are very pretty with their coating of ice. My dad said they looked like they were blossoming again.

Gamers' Club actually did something on Monday. I was pleasantly surprised. We're starting Starblade, which is "A LARP for the Gamers' Club of Richard Montgomery High School Designed by: Humza Kazmi." He's our spastic DM.

"In 720 DR, in the lands of the Bitter Sea, war broke out, embroiling all the powers there in a titanic struggle, lasting for five years. The Empire of Riva, a power to the south, attempted to stop the war, and peace talks finished twelve years ago. Now, the region has been thrown into turmoil once more, and Riva is now attempting to prevent a second war from ripping apart the Bitter Sea lands. An emergency conference has been called on the neutral island of Starblade. Now, will war once more break out amongst the Seven Nations, or will a new era of peace dawn? It is up for you to decide."

Rightyo, a conference. But without coffee or donuts. I'm glad this version of LARPing doesn't involve running around with cardboard shields hitting people with foam swords, or I would've walked out. So now, instead of pretending to be saving the world in the midst of adventures and epic battles, we can save the world through talking... and talking.. and talking.. Sounds good to me!

I am, with a guy named Han, representing "Ssi'Morgya," the nation of Merchants. Now, first of all.. what sort of freakish name is "Sissy Morgeeyuh," or "Smorgy"? Goddammit. Secondly. We're Neutral Evil. I find it to be an annoying and hypocritical fantasy convention that Merchants are always evil, when a good deal of writers are from the US, which basically is the merchant nation. Silly. It's the whole dumbass "money/capitalism is evil" thing coming through. Alex!! Give 'em a smackdown!!

I'd like a name like "The Barony of Montcalm" which is a nation of Cavaliers. I can understand a mage-o-cratic nation (whateva.. thaumacracy?), a knightly order with governmental powers, a seafaring nation, a Viking nation, and an elven nation (even though Elven is a race, not an occupation... RACIAL STEREOTYPING, I SAY!) but a nation founded on a bunch of people poking each other with swords and yelling in French.. seems very odd.

I think the meetings are better now that we're actually doing crap, and Andrew Durfor is coming and I'm getting to know Mary better.

Mary is, for those of you who don't know her, a freshman who goes to Archaeology and also is a major fan of Harry Potter and LotR, being one of those people who actually call it, when they are speaking, "El-oh-tee-ar." She despises slash. She reads 8 Bit Theater. With Andrew, a new era of geekdom for me has dawned! MWAHAHAHA!

Nick. She has brown hair.

Nick was bored with Fellowship, which he watched independently. Bah. But now that I know he doesn't care, I no longer have to invite him to any Lord of the Rings' Watching Sessions, meaning I can hold them on Fridays if I so wish. Why anyone would want to watch Star Trek: Nemesis but not The Two Towers is beyond me.

My mom is reading my blog.

She didn't understand the "Neelix is Gay" thing. It was sort of weird explaining to her that in my free time I was, with my friends, debating the sexuality of a guy on Star Trek.

Went sledding with Alex today, or yesterday at Wood, if you will, since it's after 12 midnight now. It was a rather ungratifying experience, since it's neither as thrilling as a roller coaster or as joyously gleeful as a swing or a seesaw, and plus, I kept getting snow down my boots and it was a pain to drag Alex's toboggan uphill all the time. I suppose as people get older they're amused by different things, but I don't think I'm losing my childhood. I never really went sledding as a child; perhaps sledding is merely overhyped as a 'gleeful childhood activity.'

We walked to my house over unshoveled sidewalks (which made me feel guilty for not shovelling my sidewalk) and watched the Lord of the Rings extended and new scenes, which was gleefully joyous.

YES! No school!

How Gay Is Neelix?

Pretty Damn Gay.

God, it's cold.

Is anyone interested in watching Treasure Planet at the Regal at 2:20 on either Friday or Monday? It's only an hour and 30 minutes long, so it'll be over by around four or so. I know people don't have a lot of time to spare, so give me times that're good for you. Also, I'll need a driver, who I'll be willing to pay "fare" for if they're not interested in actually watching the movie.

This next one isn't Vermeer (It's "The Procuress" by Dirck van Baburen), but if you look closely you can tell it's same painting as is depicted in the upper right hand corner of "The Concert" above.

Lake Needwood was very pleasant and filled with the Thanksgiving/Chrismas smell of a crisp winter forest. I hadn't gone to Rock Creek Park in a bit, and was surprised to notice that the trees were bare. I went into Rock Creek to gather the temperature vs. depth data with the temperature probe on the yardstick. I was wearing Milla's boots because I was the only one with feet small enough, except maybe Milla. We were trying to find a place with a depth of 60 centimeters, so I had waded into the center of the creek disregarding the water gushing into the boots and soaking my socks. I hadn't realized it would be so cold, or that the current could apply such insistent and constant pressure. I'd always thought the water would flow around me. I came back up and took off my socks and wrung them out and hung them out to dry on a tree branch and let other people do the rest of the data points. It would not prevent Ed and Milla from cuddling on the leafy bank later while I watched the water pour across a line of rocks in little rapids. Something I noticed was, the water never stops moving. (Well duh.) The ripples and the foam, the light and the shadow, is all caused by water rushing away from me, replaced by the same amount of water coming towards me, and yet from a distance, or to someone not paying attention, it looks as still and as clear as glass and as constant as if the water were a solid and unmoving sheet.

Afterwards, we had a lot of free time to just play around. We found that Rob and Dena balanced each other out on the seesaw, me and Alex balanced out Rob and Dena, and me and Alex balanced out each other. I picked up a nice walking stick David had hurled into the field as a javelin. I played on the swings to the creaking of chains. We took a walk around the lake, gleaming under the ashen sky and bare trees like unpolished metal.

Hank, Josh, Puffy (who is no longer puffy) and Alex burst into "Every Sperm is Sacred," a rap version of "I Like Chinese" and the Lumberjack Song on the bus trip, much to the dismay of everyone else. Josh and Puffy had a freestyle rap-off against Xu, and though Xu thinks he won, I think otherwise. I mean, Xu simply can't compete with such quality lines as

"Don't diss my dad at NIST just because he's a genius.
He looks through an electron microscope to find your penis!"

"Xu's sex life is so sad it's like investment banking;
whenever it gets bad he must resort to yanking."

"My dick is so big and so hairy and so long,
There are a alot of hippies who use it as a bong!"

Quality, quality.

Midnight Monday

Yesterday I went with my parents to Stella's house for early Thanksgiving dinner by candlelight. Stella and Jonathan continued being an awesome cooking couple. I'm really glad that for at least the last two years that I can remember, our family has actually been eating turkey and stuffing like a proper Thanksgiving meal. I know it's rather superficial, but I'm still glad that there is now an Asian household capable of cooking a turkey. Dongwoo and Maggie were there, continuing the Thanksgiving tradition of really tasty garlic mashed potatoes, and the nontradition of really sketchy gravy, respectively. It didn't mix well. By the time the gravy boat was empty, there was just this layer of oil. And really buttery, but tasty, succotash. My mom and dad got birthday presents, which were plum blossom perfume and plum wine. I have no idea what was up with the plums, but it was quite pleasant. My dad expounded on the history of corks while everyone else tried to look interested, my mom swapped recipes and we all talked about New York's Chinatown and food quality.

Also, I managed to cut my left index finger with a plastic knife and actually draw blood. By accident, of course. Still painful.

I am reading "Girl In A Pearl Earring" by Tracy Chevalier and was inspired to go looking through Vermeer paintings. These are all the paintings described or alluded to in the book, in chronological order.

The next painting isn't actually in the book, but the painting in the painting is the painting that Griet describes hanging from the Crucifixion Room.

Then I realized that the last one was not Vermeer, but a picture of Harry Potter in drag (link provided by WB. I love ya, Dubs.) The pictures are from The Play What I Wrote, directed by Kenneth Branagh.

I was doing some research about canned foods out of curiosity and came up with this:

An educational French comic.