Security

I just spent like the last half hour trying to convince the bank on the phone that I am indeed Angela C, the bearer of Angela C's credit card.

See, I went to UMBC to turn in my timesheets to the econ department secretary so that I can get paid, and then I went to buy food. Well, I had intended on bringing (Jeremy's) pasta, but he had no sauce except an annoying frozen one that needed thawed/boiled. I didn't mind but he was like "Nooo, it doesn't reheat well... You could just get something at the Commons" and I was like, "The Commons probably aren't open" and he was like "yeah they are" and I was like "I have no cash," but it seemed like he was loathe to have me eat his pasta so I gave up the cause.

SO, it turns out that the Grille is actually cash only. I went to the ATM to get money out, grumbling cuz I'd have to pay a "convenience" fee for using another bank's ATM, but I dinnit know my PIN number. (I hate this, BTW. I have too many numbers to remember already, you'd think they'd do a password or something.)

Okay, fine, I go to the OTC and get myself a hotpocket... via credit card. No problem.

Then, since I'm there, I go to the Bookstore to get textbooks. It takes me a while to do that, I'm kind of distracted by all the nice shiny books there and the cute tiny freshmen. Anyway, I try to pay for them (it's like a $200 purchase, and I only bought a fraction of what I need) but the card won't clear, so the cashier makes me show photo ID, and then she has to call the bank and ask them.

Well it turns out they froze the account cuz of my PIN number fiasco. So they ask me a few security questions, where I make a total retard out of myself by being hesitant/getting them wrong.... There's nothing quite so infuriating as having a stranger ask me questions about myself and getting them wrong.

"So where do you buy your books from?"
"Amazon?"
"Uh.. no." (I think the correct answer is supposed to be B&N...)

"What's your current address?"
"(address)"
"No, your current address."

(Turns out the correct answer to the current address question was last year's dorm address, which is, of course, no longer current.)

I sound like such a moron, not remembering my own address. Well I'm not. I don't need to know my address because I know precisely where I live. Only people who don't know where I live know my address. Ex: I don't need to see my nose either to know it's there. Besides:

A) It's not my address, seeing as I don't own the place
B) Anyone I care about knows how to get there. It's that room, over there, at the end of the hall. Yeah, that one.
C) The door has my name in big cheerful letters on it.
D) If you've got the right room, my roommates will be there to tell you whether I'm in or out.
E) Everyone knows I'm "Michelle's Roomie" anyway so all you've got to do is find Michelle.
F) Call me or AIM me to tell me you're coming, and I'll let you in.
G) Nobody sends me mail anyway except for spammers.
(Corollary: I've never sent myself postcards.)

Most importantly:

H) I don't live there anymore.

Same with:
"What is your work/cell phone number?", ... when I told them my actual cell phone number (since I don't have a work number), that was the wrong answer. Apparently the number they wanted was last year's dorm phone. I'd forgotten what it was, so I had to look it up on my cell call list before they were satisfied. Not knowing your own phone number also makes you look stupid.

Well, I finally managed to convince them somehow that I was indeed myself. I closed the purchase on my textbooks, and went out to retrieve my bookbag from the bag check. As you know, the Bookstore doesn't let people bring their bags into the store, for security reasons. They take your bags and give you a little plastic card with a number on it, which you return to them when you get your bags back. But it turns out that in the mess I'd lost the card somewhere in the store..

GRAH!!!

I blame Jeremy. See! If only you'd let me eat your pasta!

Otakon was frickin' awesome. I had a lot more fun this year than last.

Yay, Jeremy! It's a lot better with him there. Also, I think he's finally mastered the art of driving into downtown Baltimore. Also, I was better at finding my way around and scheduling things this year.

Bumped into Lauren there too. That was frickin' awesome. Small, small world.

I had a costume of sorts, on Sunday, if wearing a giant yellow foam World of Warcraft exclamation mark on my head can be considered a costume. Damn the torsion power! It kept falling over, or keeling over in the wind. Plus, I had to take it off to go through doors and low ceilings.

A bunch of people took my picture (most of 'em thinkin' I was from Metal Gear Solid) - I hope none of them get online or you'll have pictures of me in a bike helmet with a styrofoam sphere and a high-density foam block attached to it. I ran into two other people who had forms of punctuation attached to their heads too.. that was amusing. Plus I bumped into a bunch of guildies from my server. The number of WOW junkies at Otakon was just incredible.

(The number of people who went as Full Metal Alchemist characters... less so.)

Jeremy went as Larva from Vampire Princess Miyu and ended up being glomped by an uncomfortable number of girls.

I can also say with perfect confidence that while he was dressed as Larva, (and when we went down to the Inner Harbor), he freaked out/awed a bunch of little kids ("Are you a magician?"), and homeless people did not ask him for money.

Good Morning, Edward Said!

I've been watching Going Tribal, a Discovery Channel reality show about this British marine who goes to live with various tribes for a month. I find it to be quite interesting, though on the Discovery Channel forum a bunch of anthropologists are stirring up a ruckus.

I concur that the advertising is retarded. "Oohhh, watch the white man try to survive a month with the CANNIBALS!!!" Plus, the generic "tribal" drumbeat, the cliche spiral pattern and leet flame motifs get a thumbs down. You know if they did a show called "Going Oriental" and had a bunch of geishas, dragons and Jackie Chan in the trailer, (with ying yangs and that "chop suey" font), I'd be pretty pissed off too. It'd be almost as bad as the description^* UMBC dining services wrote of our Chinese takeout. Anyway, the show itself is actually pretty good, though I think that the hour-long episodes are too short to give us anywhere near a comprehensive understanding of various cultures. True to its reality show nature, you get all the crazy shit, ("I'm Bruce Parry, watch me drink cow blood!") but not so much normal things.

Of course, all the anthropologists are screaming, "Cultural Imperialism!" I think the anthropologists should pull their heads out of their asses and be glad a show like this was even made, and is widely watched. One of the criticisms I saw was, "OMG how dare the Discovery Channel send a normal joe, and not a trained anthropologist!" I find that to be a paternalistic and imperialistic statement in itself. So the only people who can "study" foreign peoples are "trained scientists"? So the only contact indigenous people should have with the outside world should be people sent there to study them? God. The Suri and the Kombai, among others, are living and breathing people, not Jane Goodall and the monkeys. They should have the final say over who to invite into their homes to live with and befriend, not scientists who want to "protect the natives from cultural contamination." Explorer Bruce Parry never claims to be an objective scientist doing a scholarly documentary. His show is merely the memoir of his personal experience and how it changed him. It's not the be-all-end-all authority about a people, and nothing ever will be. If someone produces a reality show about living in Japan or England or Sweden, will the anthropologists jump on his ass too?

Anthropologists are also annoyed that Bruce Parry spins his experience as being exciting and dangerous. This annoyance is understandable, since for ages anyone who wasn't white has been labeled an exotic, wild savage. To which I respond... exotic, wild, or no, living miles away from the nearest modern medical facility is dangerous. Having bows drawn on you by a dozen Indonesian tribesmen is dangerous. Living in Sudan on the border between two warring ethnic groups, in the middle of a civil war, is dangerous. Parry made it quite clear that his hosts were hospitable and kind, but be that as it may, anyone in his situation is in great danger, regardless of the disposition of his companions. It's a hard life, and it does a great disservice to the people involved to pretend that, "Ladeedadeeda, there's no war or disease here! We live in Rousseau's paradise!"

Bruce Parry has balls. Give him credit for that.

--
*"Pungent spices. Delicate, aromatic sauces. Intricate and imaginative combinations of vitamin rich vegetables and chicken, beef, or pork. Mein Bowl provides exotic, high quality food that nourishes the body and soul and creates a positive flowing chi. It's everything that you look for in an Oriental restaurant-and a little bit more. A meal at Mein Bowl isn't just a meal; it's a visit to another culture!"

Scientists Breed Cute Tame Foxes

Awww!

Tears of St. Lawrence

Friday was aptly named, being that I spent it at Matt's place cooking up veggie tempura and attempting to roll sushi. We played an Oriental Adventures style game based on Exalted mechanics. After a night of pretending to be Asian, we went outside, tried to catch the meteor shower, failed, and went home. The Leonids, by the way, are also known as the Tears of St. Lawrence because they fall near his feast day. St. Lawrence is famous for being burned alive on a gridiron, and is reported to have said, "Now you may turn me over, my body is roasted enough on this side." I don't know what it is with Catholic saints all being more famous for dying in a hideous manner than for doing good deeds. My sister's church, for example is lined with pictures of bleeding Korean martyrs. I personally, think it would be more important to learn how to live well than to die well.

--

Went to Atlantic City on Saturday.

Hot as balls on the beach, lots of old people, little Chinese men, chain-smokers at slot machines, and shiny lights. Carl made $200 on poker. He calculates that as basically earning $60 an hour. Congratulations, Carl. He has a reputation in roleplaying games for making deals with demons in exchange for dark power, and usually dying in hideous ways, so this isn't surprising. (Mike Robbins even made a comic series called, "The many deaths of Carl.") I also got an economics lesson. I couldn't gamble legally (since when has the gambling age been 21???) and the minimum bets on craps were like $10. Blackjack was like $20. As opposed to um, Guild Wars, which costs $50 and will last me a year.

Old Senate fogeys like complaining that video games are sinful. You all have probably heard the big scandal about Grand Theft Auto's Hot Coffee mod (which I, undoubtedly like thousands of others, promptly downloaded after all the press). While I find games like GTA distasteful, and I know parenting is a hard job even without video games, the only way to get a mod like Hot Coffee is to... mod.

Fact of Life #1: If some hacker accesses areas of the game that were intentionally locked off, that's not the game developer's fault. That's hacking. Duh.

Tons and tons of unfinished code remains in all games as a matter of course, which can't be deleted, only locked off. If someone goes out of their way to hack the game, who's fault is that?

Fact of Life #2: Fourteen year old boys will masturbate. I don't know why parents are so shocked to hear this. "Oh, my little Johnny would never touch his weewee!" Talk to your kids about sex. If you slap your son everytime he looks at a breast, he'll grow up neurotic. This isn't to say, give your kids smut, but don't, you know, go ballistic.

Jack Thompson even condemned the Sims as being sinful. In this life simulation game where you can do anything from getting a job or getting married to washing the dishes or reading the newspaper, Thompson gets his panties in a jumble because in the game you can take a bath or change baby diapers. Woe is me, the lustful nudity! Nevermind that all nekkid people, even kids, are covered up by a blur. Supposedly there are hacks that can remove the blur. Nevermind that naked Sims look like Barbie/Ken dolls, without nipples or genitalia. Nevermind that EA (the company that makes the Sims) cracks down harshly on any such mods that they find. Nevermind that the Sims is the best and most popular example of a game that doesn't rely on sex or violence for entertainment. Nevermind that the Sims is the game that best reaches out to older gamers and women. Nevermind that violent crime this decade is the lowest it's been in history. No no no, Jack Thompson is on a crusade.

Jack Thompson says that game companies are to blame because they encourage modding, nevermind that most modding is the creation of new levels or different character models. Counter-Strike, the first person-shooter where you fight terrorism, started out as a mod for Half-Life and got so popular it's now a separate game. In the case of the Sims, the mod community mostly does innocuous things like custom-designing wallpaper for your house or a new spring outfit for your daughter. While we're busy persecuting game companies for what a very small minority of modders do, why don't we start arresting celebrities for public indecency, since porn sites are photoshopping their heads onto naked bodies?

Of course, like gambling, all the outcry will die down once they realize how much video gaming contributes to the economy...

Hypocrites.

Check out GrowRPG, a great flash game/turn-based strategy/ experiment in chaos theory.

Basically, this is a game in which you build an RPG world turn by turn. So one turn you may "build" a forest, the next a mountain, the next a town. After everything is built, then the hero sets off on his pre-planned adventure through the world you just made, on his quest to slay the great evil. The outcome of his quest is determined not so much by his actions, but by the order in which you build features of the world. A forest that is grown earlier is denser, a town that is built near an ocean can construct shipyards while a town near a forest makes lumber mills, a castle that is well-fortified earlier can repel an attack while a weaker castle smolders.

What's interesting about it, besides being a fun game, is that it gets me to wonder to what extent success or failure is based upon individual actions/decisions, and to what extent it depends on circumstances. In each game, the hero does mostly the same things, but his world determines how well he does, or sometimes even how he does certain things. Play it. You'll understand what I mean.

Knight/Mage

The best short story ever.

A Church completely made out of Legos

Oh, and while you're at it... The Brick Testament, a rendition of the Bible, as told in Lego.

I Hart Darth, the cutest Star Wars webcomic out there.

I found the link via Manic Graffiti, the cutest World of Warcraft webcomic out there.

The Paladinly Fortune Cookie

"Have faith in the force of right and not in the right of force."

Lucky numbers 6, 17, 38, 46, 2 7

LEARN CHINESE: Boss
Lao-Ban

So True

I was chatting on World of Warcraft. A gnome asked me what I did, and I told him I was an econ major.

To which he replied: "So what else do you do, besides gaming and counting money?"

Well...

actually, that's pretty much it.

SMITE!!

I'm proud to announce that I am no longer a PvP virgin.

This Saturday, me and Jeremy ran a level 27 orc hunter all the way down Stonetalon Peak.

He got away. (Paladin and warrior vs. Aspect of the Cheetah... catching runners = no. We did ensure, however, that all he could do is run... like the little Horde girlie-man that he is. :P)

(But Angie! You outnumbered him two to one! And a level 50 mage joined up with you to frost-shock him!)

HUSH! GREAT VICTORY FOR THE ALLIANCE!

Warsong Gulch, here I come!

So! What's going on with me?

I'm being a research assistant for my econ prof

(Props to Dr. Mitch!)

What I'm doing is I'm cross-referencing 19th century marriage records to the 1851 census in Britain, to see if whether adult literacy rate (as determined by whether people sign their marriage license or just X it) matches up with their childhood educational backrounds.

So.. uh.. lots of Excel database stuff, really. And entertaining facets of 19th century life.

I don't think "farmer's widowed pauper" or "spoon polisher" or "pearl button cutter" really flies on resumes anymore. Or "gentleman."

This one time I was reading the job description for this guy, who described himself as a 'inge filer.' I was really confused until I read the other records, in which his son described the filer as being a locksmith.

Apparently he's a hinge filer.

Fuckin' Cockney!

Game on the Brain

Did you hear? Some paladin won the roll on Baron Rivendare's Epic Mount. It's one of the rarest drops in the game. In Character, I wonder how this obscenely lucky lawful-good Holy Knight of the Light, champion of chivalry and justice, is going to justify that pimped-out undead steed named Deathcharger.

• "He was.. uh.. on sale."
• "He's gentle! Really!"
• "Those obsidian horns are for decoration!"

--
I have a really hot wallpaper of Arthas Menethil (not Arthas Terenas^*, you fools!) on my desktop. This is one of him back when he's human, not the Death Knight one which proliferates the internet, because frankly I don't want that psychotic smile gleefully Cheshire-catting me every time I start up Windows.

I wonder whose face the artist used for reference?

--
Some guy made a replica of Frostmourne. You know you're pretty sad when you have less of a life than Arthas.

--
Excerpt from a hilarious editorial honoring Arthas with the Dumbass of the Month Award:

"Quote: "It's time to fight fire with kerosene!"

Key Appearances: Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos, because once he's doing the whole Undead bit he's no longer qualifiable.

Qualifications: Poor ability to think out consequences of actions, ignorance of obvious progression, lousy hair, looking half-drunk, not having played Starcraft far enough to pick up on this particular plot twist

Redeeming Point: Really, I have no beef with undead Arthas whatsoever.

Damning Point: This is essentially saying that he's smarter dead than alive.

Inaccurate Statement: "Arthas just didn't know where his path was leading."

Correction: Hmph. Sure. That shit didn't fly with Kerrigan, either."

The rest of it is even more entertaining.

--
*Really now. I don't understand why this misnomer persists. Nobody goes around addressing real monarchs by last name, so why start the habit with fictional, computer game ones? You'd feel pretty dumb referring to Queen Elizabeth (I) as "Queen Tudor."

Excessive Profanities

Some fucker on the World of Warcraft forums spoiled Half-Blooded Prince for me.

What's ironic about this is that he had the spoiler in his sig, which I missed completely because I don't read forum sigs anyway. However, some well-intentioned fuckers further down the thread were saying things like, "Hey, you should change your sig," and "You shouldn't post sigs like that here," which, of course, made me curious. So I scrolled back up to read it, like a dumbass fucker.

You fuckers!

Jose Needs to Get In On This Action

Hey guys! Today I found some D&D Style Porn!

It's pretty well-written, actually. And hot.

The author is a developer for White Wolf now.

...

I fear for Stone Mountain.

I was trawling for info about the new The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie, and in the process have discovered that Narnia is pretty much totally ruined for me as a Grown-Up. Ever since I discovered the whole Christian Allegory thing. Not as fun anymore. This is why I think people should read as much as possible when they're kids, because adults just don't get excited about as much.

I remember when I was like 15, 16, and finishing some books that I'd started a few years earlier, or rereading things, and not enjoying them as much, and thinking to myself, "Oh, shit, shit I'm growing up!" Then I'd cram as much reading into my schedule as possible, reading in a passionate, shark-like frenzy (you know, pages and viscera flying everywhere- you've all seen the Discovery Channel) so that I'd finish all my campy juvenile fantasy adventures before I got too old to enjoy them.

Anyway, now I don't like Narnia so much because I keep finding more and more that could possibly offend me. I don't try to look, honest. It's self-defeating. I like enjoying my childhood. But bothersome things just... kind of appear, like those Magic Eye pop-ups I used to not be able to see either.

For example, today I was reading this thing about Susan (oh btw, this whole blog is about the Chronicles of Narnia so if you haven't read them for some Godforsaken reason, go do it) today, and how she didn't die at the end of the series because she needed to repent. I didn't think much about Susan when I read the books as a kid. Oh, she can't come back to Narnia because she acts like a selfish teenager. I didn't think much about it. Really, the only reaction I had was one of vindictive pleasure; I knew too many selfish teenagers even as a kid and was glad girls like them weren't allowed. You know, the mean girls who won't let you sit with them at lunch...

*sniff*...

ANYWAY. Thinking of it now, she seems like a terribly tragic character, not because of what's written about her, but what's not. Here you have this girl, who isn't let into heaven because she's concerned with material things. She's obsessed with makeup and clothes and parties and acting grown up. I feel sorry for her. I can see her in a dark room in England, night-dimmed in the dark lonely countryside, the little tendrils of emotion, of sin and subversion crawling out from her head and over her body, thoughts about boys and new sensations and Nazi bombs falling over this other Eden, turning from a girl to a woman alone, listening to the breathing of her brothers and sister, too young to understand, and how lonely that must have been. She wears lipstick and nylon, the book says, which is why she can't come to Narnia anymore.

Imagine this- Imagine you are a woman of power, gentle and beloved, respected and feared in turn. Imagine you are a queen. Imagine that armies ride out in your name, fleets sail under your banner and a strong west wind, barbarian princes hammer at the gates for your love. You have a splendid castle, a sumptuous table, servants, song, and sword that wait upon you. You are noble and you are wise, and by this your country flourishes in music, wonder and undimmed beauty.

One day, you are hunting in an unfamiliar forest, an aura of foreboding creeping on you like vines. You strain against its power, shying away from it, but your siblings urge you onward, so on you go. With a strange sensation twisting your body and a torrent of alien thoughts, your old life vanishes in an instant. You look down at your arms, not recognizing your body. You stare into a mirror, not recognizing your face. You are a queen no longer. Your country, your home, your people, your friends, your power, your wealth, are gone, and all you are is a scared, vulnerable girl in World War II England as the bombs keep falling, where there is no nobility and no wisdom, only despair and sacrifice. Unlike our memories, you have no photographs, no souvenirs, only what you can grasp in your memory as your memory fades.

When you see your parents again, over a middle-class, English dinner, they seem young to you, younger than you just were. You are powerless again. You, who once commanded a kingdom, must appease two foolish adults, strangers who you have not seen in decades. Initially, they humor you and your childish pretenses at royalty. They humor your pretenses at acting much older than you are, commanding and regal.

Peter takes the mantle of eldest; bossy, annoyingly responsible, and pragmatic. Lucy and Edmund enthusiastically scramble for the next adventure. Only you seem to feel some longing for your past life. Because you are older, your parents tell you that you have a responsibility to act mature, that you're setting a bad example by playing these frivolous games with your younger siblings. Your friends think you're mad. Honestly, how could you have aged to adulthood in a day? Honestly. And you think they're right... Anything like that is completely preposterous, there's no proof, it's all in your head. What silly games you played as a child.

And if what you saw with your own eyes, touched with your own hands, isn't here, never was, then why should you believe in what you can't see, can't touch, isn't here, never was?

Why should you believe in God?

You pretend to move on, socializing yourself to distraction, grasping at phantoms, holding court among your remaining subjects, cliquish girls and lovesick schoolboys. You remember your lost glory that no one else seems to remember, the games you played as a child. Once you were a queen (in those old imaginary games, of course). What are you now? A secretary, a housewife in Cold War Europe? Nothing you can do will rival what you once were.

You are broken. Your entire family died in a railway crash many years ago.

Atheist Summer Camp

@____@

O....kay.

Check out the New York Times article about it that's linked on the site too.

Ah, Patrick Henry College.

Read this. It's freaky.

"God and Country" excerpt:

Patrick Henry’s president, Michael Farris, is a lawyer and minister who has worked for Christian causes for decades. He founded the school after getting requests from two constituencies: homeschooling parents and conservative congressmen. The parents would ask him where they could find a Christian college with a “courtship” atmosphere, meaning one where dating is regulated and subject to parental approval. The congressmen asked him where they could find homeschoolers as interns and staffers, “which I took to be shorthand for ‘someone who shares my values,’ ” Farris said. “And I knew they didn’t want a fourteen-year-old kid.” So he set out to build what he calls the Evangelical Ivy League, and what the students call Harvard for Homeschoolers.

You know what's freaky? These kids have more of a social life than I do now.

:P

To Terrorists: If you hate America, attack America. If you hate our government and our armies and our guns, attack those. We will be waiting for you. Don’t attack our friends, people who have nothing to do with our war, people who are good and decent or maybe not, but don’t deserve to die. Don’t attack our colleagues. Don’t attack our relatives, our children, our teachers, our scientists, our doctors, the people who make a city live and breathe.

Today should have been happy. Today should have been about the Olympics, a global event, though a flawed event, a celebration of peace. And for the first time in years, leaders of great countries were arming themselves against poverty, disease, and ignorance. There is urgency to it now.

To G8: don’t stop until the horror is over, don’t stop until the rage is over, don’t stop until the despair is over, don’t stop for anything because more than ever we need you.

To the people of London from the people of America: We love you as our own. God bless you, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Peace be with you, wherever you go.

Because We Love Bono

I'm an econ major and I've been hoping for G8 to succeed for a long time now. What is G8? Well, it's a summit of eight developed countries around the world deciding how to combat global poverty and environmental depredation. They're trying to do it by getting debt cancellation for third world countries and dedicating 0.7 percent of gross national product (among developed countries) for foreign aid. For those of you who are going "Huh?" basically this means that every one hundred dollars you spend, seven cents goes overseas. Currently, at least for the US, only 0.18 percent of GNP goes overseas, or ... 1.8 cents per $100. To put *that* into perspective, that's $15 billion dollars for foreign aid per year compared to $450 billion dollars for military expenditure. $15 billion dollars for all of Africa. Our $15 billion dollars is $12 per sub-Saharan African per year. That means you could probably buy an African like... a t-shirt. 0.7 percent of GNP would be $70 per African per year, which could buy them safe water, anti-malarial and anti-AIDs drugs, contraception, the beginning of investment in improved farming, like, say, fertilizer and irrigation. The village could afford, oh, a truck.

Another thing to think about: The top 400 richest people in the US put together earn 69 billion dollars. The combined citizenry of Botswana, Uganda, Nigeria and Senegal earn.. $57 billion. So basically the 400 richest people in the US earn more than 161 million people in Africa.

It's about time for G8.

You know what's really wrong? My local library has the Cliff notes version of Paradise Lost but not the real thing.

At first I thought it said bells. Bells would be cool.

Generate your Anime Style by Jena-su
Name:
Hair:	Rediculously long, always flowing.
Clothes:	Dark and sexy. With randomly placed belts. Lots and lots of belts...
Powers:	None
Special Features:	Wings
Sidekick:	Your best friend.
Attitude:	Bouncy one minute, murderous the next. No one knows when you're going to mood-swing next.
Weapon:	Staff
Quiz created with MemeGen!

This is fucking awesome:

"The example is of the Noble Women of Tortosa in Aragon, and recorded by Josef Micheli Marquez, who plainly calls them Cavalleros or Knights, or may I not rather say Cavalleras, seeing I observe the words Equitissae and Militissae (formed from the Latin Equites and Milites) heretofore applied to Women, and sometimes used to express Madams or Ladies, though now these Titles are not known.

"Don Raymond, last Earl of Barcellona (who by intermarriage with Petronilla, only Daughter and Heir of King Ramiro the Monk, united that principality to the Kingdom of Aragon) having in the year 1149, gained the City of Tortosa from the Moors, they on the 31 of December following, laid a new Siege to that place, for the recovery of it out of the Earls hands. The Inhabitants being a length reduced to gread streights, desired relief of the Earl, but he, being not in a condition to give them any, they entertained some thoughts of making a surrender. Which the Women hearing of, to prevent the disaster threatning their City, themselves, and Children, put on mens Clothes, and by a resolute sally, forced the Moors to raise the Siege.

"The Earl, finding himself obliged, bythe gallentry of the action, thought fit to make his acknowlegements thereof, by granting them several Privileges and Immunities, and to perpetuate the memory of so signal an attempt, instituted an Order, somewhat like a Military Order, into which were admitted only those Brave Women, deriving the honor to their Descendants, and assigned them for a Dadge, a thing like a Fryars Capouche, sharp at the top, after the form of a Torch, and of a crimson colour, to be worn upon their Head-clothes. He also ordained, that at all publick meetings, the women should have precedence of the Men. That they should be exempted from all Taxes, adn that all the Apparel and Jewels, though of never so great value, left by their dead Husbands, should be their own.

"These Women (saith our Author) having thus aquired this Honor by their personal Valour, carried themselves after the Military Knights of those days."

-Ashmole, The Institution, Laws, and Ceremony of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (1672), Ch. 3, sect. 3

I was in DC with Jeremy on Saturday for the Battle of the Barbecues, but it was hot (DC in high summer at noon) and overcommercialized. We were horrified that these vendors actually expected us to pay for our food, those capitalist bastards. So after we bummed around for free samples we went to the Natural History Museum, where all the exhibits were "temporarily closed for your convenience." We went into the Gems and Minerals exhibit and looked at shiny rocks. After that, we went to the Hirschorn (aka Donut Museum) despite our displeasure with modern art and looked at shiny God-what-is-thats.

Went to dinner at Teaism, a trendy Asian-style cafe by the National Archives.

I went up to the cashier and ordered some noodles. The cashier boy looked at me funny. "Would you like anything else?" he said.

I looked at him harder, squinted my eyes, and then suddenly yelled, right there in public, "HOLY FUCK YOU'RE NICK S!"

I waved my arms around and pointed like I saw Bigfoot and generally acted like a spazz.

Lesson: Sometimes I don't see people because I don't expect to see.

Am in Hong Kong, y'all.

I saw a funny ad. It goes like this: "If you are sneezing, it is for three reasons. One, you have a cold. Two, you have allergies. Three, your coworkers are talking about you behind your back. For the first two, there's (Trademarked Overthecounter Medication). For the third, you're on your own." <--- Jeremy will get this. Nobody else who reads my blog will.

***

Something you'll notice about Victoria Park is that there are a lot of people practicing martial arts. Mostly it's flocks of old women doing tai chi to some brassy Chinese oldies blasting from a radio, or little kids from some kung fu school swinging quarterstaffs. Which is not to say that all Chinese people know martial arts, but a larger proportion of them do than Americans, and they tend to congregate in public places. I think Victoria Park is the only park in the world where a large portion of the populace has swords.

("But I wanna play on the swings!"

"Practice your kata! Then you swing!"

"Sifu!"

.. "Hold your head up! Head up! Arms out! Straighter! Very good! - Don't stab the joggers!")

***

Went to Central today, the Manhattan of Hong Kong's New York. Were going to look at an art exhibit but it was over, so we walked around looking at the Bank of China Tower and the International Finance Center, which are basically the trademark shining glass giants of Hong Kong's skyline. They command a legion of window-washers, which provide a positive externality; shiny buildings mean moralized, productive workers. Inside, they're black marble and grey basalt, monochromatic basilicas, gleaming and white, catwalks with black fountains, ovals and arcs and slanted transparence. It's a sign of high GDP. This is good. The economy is wonderful. The most beautiful buildings of the 15th century were churches, glory be to God. The most beautiful buildings of the 21st century are banks. Glory be to Mammon.

***

-Have had some trouble adjusting to the shotgun seat of the car being on the left.

***

My grandpa has been in the hospital respiratory ward under observation, ever since x-rays of his lungs showed some scarring. Apparently it's from an old lung infection, so it seems like a false alarm. There's also something wrong with his lymph nodes which causes water build up in his cells, I'm not really sure, but the only way to find what that is is to draw bone marrow from his spinal cord, which they don't want to do. He also has low hemoglobin and is getting a blood transfusion so he'll be staying there a few days. Strangely enough, though I know I'm supposed to care, I don't really all that much. I don't feel very much of anything. I've been visiting him every day and standing around stiffly not having anything to say (I never have even when he's not sick) until he says that I shouldn't trouble myself and can leave. My mom says my silent visits make him happy anyway, just having someone there, but they don't make me feel any less useless.

Jen's birthday is tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Jen!!

Dude. Star Wars!

Watch "Crash," y'all.

Also, remember to register for Otakon while it's still early.

Stab, Stab, Stab the Evil Infidel

Go watch Kingdom of Heaven. It's about the Crusades. It's seriously awesome. It has some phenomenal writing that never takes the easy road, and by some miracle makes a "medieval epic" seem fresh.

Spoilers: The Muslims win. Kay was cheering. I was mortified. Kay! You can't be cheering for the "bad guys!"

...

No, I don't care if you're Muslim, Kay.

BAD GUYS, I TELL YOU!!!!

Been going to UMCP a lot lately. Went a few weeks ago to attend a lecture about the role of video games in military training. Got to hang out with Silvia for a bit too. When I called her, she was like a few blocks from me. Small world.

Went down this weekend too to use the library, and also dropped by the United States Botanical Gardens (ooh, lots of plants. Moving on) and the Museum of the Native American Indian. Architecture = awesome. I haven't been through much of it, but the collection seemed kind of "eh" to me. This may be politically incorrect, but I can't say I'm too impressed with things made out of bits of leather, beads and rocks. The guns and swords were very impressive though. It does occur to me that the coolest thing about the Native American museum was the European artifacts. Do I care? Not really.

The World of Warcraft manga is teh suck. Go read it so you can complain about it with me.

I'm in a new D&D game with my roommates for next year. I figure it's a great way to get to know them. (If you're wondering- yes. They're girls.)

BTW, I'm moving to Casselman. Ironically, Kay, who lives in Casselman now, is moving to Antietam. Dammit, Kay!

Stay put!

It's called.. guessing.

Great Gamer GM says drop 2d10, aanndd... you roll 66% !

Not too bad- not too bad at all. You're not exactly a first generation gamer, and you probably have other hobbies besides rolling dice and slaughtering orcs, but you've managed to collect enough knowledge to impress even the most experienced gamer. Pull out a few more nights for gaming and spend some more time with the obscure books, soon you're well on your way to becomming the Ultimate Gamer.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 66% on dice

Link: The Real Gamers use Dice Test written by luminasita on OkCupid Free Online Dating

On Wednesday, went to see Matisyahu, the Hasidic Reggae Superstar.

It's fuckin' awesome.

Went to U Penn a few weeks ago to look at their archaeological collection. They have the world's most extensive collection of Roman glass and the world's largest rock crystal, among other things. I really wish I was an archaeologist there- just their museum has a brown brick Byzantine facade, a stone fountain on the wall between the gates, and a bowl-shaped fountain in the middle of the courtyard circle. I don't know how U Penn's academics are (I know it's hard to get into and expensive) but I'm a sucker for good architecture. Apparently their department is in the middle of doing field research in Egypt though, which should count for something. Plus, a campus in the middle of Philadelphia makes me drool. The campus itself looks like a real city, but not in an intimidating way. Look at my campus- stuck off the exit of a highway and with architecture of 70's cinderblock, brick and cold glass. All our art exhibits are either displayed in some room in the Fine Arts Building, or in the gallery of the library.

Also in the same trip went to the Academy of Fine Arts, where you aren't allowed to take pictures. Took a look at city hall, which is pretentious yet awe-inspiring, and Reading Market, where I had a cheese steak. Duh.

Also, went down to DC for the last crowded day of the cherry blossom festival, and walked all over the National Mall.
This weekend, went to historic Ellicot city, and Patapsco State Park.

Yeah. Maybe more later.

I always thought it rather one-sided how history teachers always present the Persian Wars as freedom's war against oppression and cruelty.

From Plutarch's Lives of Themistocles, as translated by John Dryden:

When Themistocles was about to sacrifice, close to the admiral's galley, there were three prisoners brought to him, fine looking men, and richly dressed in ornamented clothing and gold, said to be the children of Artayctes and Sandauce, sister to Xerxes. As soon as the prophet Euphrantides saw them, and observed that at the same time the fire blazed out from the offerings with a more than ordinary flame, and a man sneezed on the right, which was an intimation of a fortunate event, he took Themistocles by the hand, and bade him consecrate the three young men for sacrifice, and offer them up with prayers for victory to Bacchus the Devourer; so should the Greeks not only save themselves, but also obtain victory. Themistocles was much disturbed at this strange and terrible prophecy, but the common people, who in any difficult crisis and great exigency ever look for relief rather to strange and extravagant than to reasonable means, calling upon Bacchus with one voice, led the captives to the altar, and compelled the execution of the sacrifice as the prophet had commanded. This is reported by Phanias the Lesbian, a philosopher well read in history.

DOG EATS COMATOSE WOMAN'S FOOT

By Jeff Wilson
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday, November 18, 1997; 6:47 a.m. EST

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A dog slipped through a pet
door and chewed off the foot of a woman who has been
in a coma for several years, prompting a police search
for the animal amid concern over rabies.

Doctors amputated what was left of the woman's right
foot Monday as police hunted for the large black dog,
possibly a Rottweiler. The woman's mother chased it
away Sunday morning after seeing it gnawing on her
daughter.

"The mother just happened to walk in the bedroom
and saw this and screamed," Lt. Joe Hiltner said. The
victim has been in a deep coma since a horse-riding
accident several years ago.

Police did not release the name of the woman, who is
in her 30s. She was in stable condition after the
amputation just above her ankle, said Jennifer Bruce,
spokeswoman for Providence Holy Cross Medical
Center.

It was unclear whether the victim was aware of the
attack.

"Her eyes are open, she's just not very responsive," Ms.
Bruce said. "At times she grimaces like she is in pain."

Authorities say it will be difficult to find the dog
because there are many strays and pets running loose in
the rural neighborhood 15 miles north of downtown
Los Angeles.

"We want to find it and quarantine it to make sure it
doesn't have rabies," Animal Control spokesman Peter
Persic said. "We also want to find out if it had
aggressive behavior and could attack someone else or
even a child."

Animal control officers suggested the dog entered the
home because it was attracted by another dog inside.

It Sounded Like a Good Idea at the Time

Well, for my midterm assignment for Archaeology of Ancient Trade, I had to write a paper from the perspective of one person involved in ancient trade. Being that I had gotten three hours of sleep the night before (thanks a lot, daylight savings time! grrr.. and World of Warcraft) I thought it a great idea at the time to write this paper from the perspective of a pirate. An ancient Greek pirate.

"O Muses sing in me o' how I plundered th' Athenian galleon! Yar, matey!! Shiver me timbers! Thar be scurvy hoplites on yon trireme, sailin' th' wine dark sea! Avast! Thar be Persian silver buried here! Zeus give me strength from Olympus!!"

I think I have written the first academic paper ever completely in "pirate-speak."

He's BACK!

For those of you who were in Mr. Thomas' history class with me in eleventh grade, you might find this amusing.

Alcibiades - History for Kids!

Alcibiades was born in Athens around 450 BC. His mother was an Alcmaeonid. He was from one of the wealthiest families in Athens, and he grew up with the best of everything. After his father was killed in battle, Pericles, another Alcmaeonid, was Alcibiades' guardian. When he was a teenager, during the early years of the Peloponnesian War, he was a student¹ of Socrates.

By the time Alcibiades grew up, Athens was beginning to lose the Peloponnesian War. Alcibiades became a very good general. The Sicilian Expedition was his idea.

But when he got in trouble with the Athenians over the question of who smashed the good-luck statues², he ended up running away from Athens to Sparta in the middle of the night.

When Alcibiades got to Sparta, he made a deal with the Spartans. If they would let him stay in Sparta, he would help them win the Peloponnesian War by giving them good advice. They agreed, and the first thing Alcibiades told the Spartans was that they should build a navy and use it to destroy the Sicilian Expedition.

When this plan worked, the Spartans thought Alcibiades was really smart. He also advised them to lay a permanent siege to Athens, instead of only in the summertime. That worked too. But after a while, Alcibiades got into trouble in Sparta, too. People said he had been kissing³ the wife of one of the Spartan kings. He had to leave Sparta quickly.

This time Alcibiades fled to Persia. The Persian satrap (ruler) of Anatolia (modern Turkey) let him stay there, and now Alcibiades gave the Persians good advice about how to manage the Peloponnesian War.

Near the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Athenians were so desperate that they let Alcibiades come back as their general. But in the end, they fired him again, and he went back to Persia, where he was killed⁴ in 404 BC, just as the war was ending.

1... and by "student of Socrates" they mean "fucktoy." Talk about Socrates "corrupting the youth"....
2... and by "smashed the good-luck statues" they mean, "castrated various statues of Hermes which consisted solely of 1) a head and 2) an erect penis."
3... and by "kissing" they mean "conceiving illegitimate children with."
4... and by "killed" they mean "shot through by arrows as he was running completely naked from a burning house, after having had sex with his assassins' sister."

THE END.

I have no idea who sent me this.

"Read and Learn!

Sometimes symptoms of a stroke are difficult to
identify. Unfortunately, the lack of awareness
spells disaster. The stroke victim may suffer brain damage
when people nearby fail to recognize the symptoms of
a stroke. Now doctors say a bystander can recognize a
stroke by asking three simple questions:


*Ask the individual to SMILE.
*Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS.
*Ask the person to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE
(Coherently) (ie. It is sunny out today)

If he or she has trouble with any of these tasks,
call 9-1-1 immediately and describe the symptoms to
the dispatcher.


After discovering that a group of non-medical
volunteers could identify facial weakness, arm
weakness and speech problems, researchers urged the
general public to learn the three questions. They
presented their conclusions at the American Stroke
Association's annual meeting last February.
Widespread use of this test could result in prompt
diagnosis and treatment of the stroke and prevent
brain damage."

In Like Flynn

I saw Errol Flynn's Robin Hood yesterday. For those of you who don't know, Errol Flynn is the hottest man alive*. He is sex on legs. He has a reputation for being a pervert, which is fine with me. He's allowed to be a pervert. He's Errol Fucking Flynn. Orlando Bloom has often been called the next Errol Flynn. No. Blasphemy. Errol Flynn is the next Errol Flynn. Errol Flynn could spank Orlando Bloom until he cried for mommy, and then when she showed up, he'd fuck her. Because Flynn is just that badass. And his thighs... (oh lord!)

..Ahem.

You all should see this movie. It's hilarious. And by hilarious I mean hilariously bad. It has atrocious music in mono and ridiculously flamboyant costumes made out of crushed velvet and metallic fabrics. Actors being hit by arrows have this comical delayed reaction before they fall over. The fencing is hammy. Marion is whiny. The love scenes are best scene-selected through. In general, it feels like you're watching somebody's LARP. I'm not a man, but if I wanted a gay sidekick, I'd have to go with a lute-playing bard who runs around in red tights and a cape.

"Will Scarlet of the Merry Men" also makes a magnificent porn name...

Ahem!

Another thing is, while the portrayals of all the characters are pretty much black and white (not literally- the film is in "Technicolor!") I can't but feel sorry for the villain, Sir Guy. If I opened the door on my fiance's maidenly bower to find her being shagged stupid by a forest brigand, I'd be pretty damn pissed too. Conversely, Robin Hood has a creepy, predatory vibe. Never mind that Marion is as stupid as a rock ("Oh look, I've been abducted by a renegade outlaw and fifty sweaty men, this isn't creepy at all") and develops a severe case of Stockholm's Syndrome ("I'm your hostage. I want you so bad. Do me now.") I get the impression that Robin Hood is a man who beats and humiliates clergy, inflicts stark terror upon many an innocent traveler, incites mobs to their worst and most bestial behavior, and toys with women like a cat with mice. Robin Hood may be a good man, but the fact that he is chaotic, unpredictable, lawless, and desperate makes him a force to be feared, like any other lord of armed men. His cheerfulness is precisely what makes him cruel- oh, let's laugh while we kill people. He may be popular and brave and charismatic, but you know, still cruel, in the end. It doesn't make him any less interesting or attractive, but it's something to keep in mind.

Wit and charm is one of the things I miss in modern action heroes. I miss Errol Flynn's silver voice, his measured inflection and its timbre. Modern action heroes, to achieve this thing known as "psychological realism," come in two flavors- Brood and Sulk. If you're lucky, they may also come in Angst and Whine. Not so our Robin. He's eloquent, articulate, smooth like water over silk. Between smiting the unjust and harassing the clergy, Errol Flynn seduces the ladies and taunts the knights, makes witty conversations and flashy entrances. He feasts, carouses, and swaggers around Sherwood forest with a giant deer carcass strapped to his back. No other hero does this. (Except for Viggo Mortensen, and Viggo Mortensen is a hippie.) If abstract traits can be concretely embodied, Errol Flynn is a towering pillar of charisma, charisma in its Platonic form, its elemental state. If there were monuments to charisma like those to liberty, a four hundred foot tall statue of Errol Flynn would grace New York harbor, possibly exposing itself to greater Manhattan. That, beyond any physical manifestation, is what Errol Flynn is.

... Not that it hurts. He wears a lace-up collar partway undone. Under it I see his glorious tanned neck, the rise of his Adam's apple, the hollow of his throat, his broad, manly chest...

...Ahem.

I digress.

*by alive I mean dead.

Pictures: (all captions are mine, of course)

"Hey, crazy lady, your husband's like RIGHT OUTSIDE!"

"I'm suspended fifty feet in the air above shark infested waters. This is a great time to take a picture!"

"I can get away with wearing a polka-dotted tie. Why? Because I'm Errol Flynn!"

"I'm badass"

".. I'm only thinking pious thoughts, hm?.."

"This is my son. He's hot."

"This is my grandson. He's also hot. Where do you think they get it from? Me. Because I'm Erol Flynn."

Minor Inconveniences

ah...

...gastro-intestinal bleeding.

I think this is God's punishment for laughing at Jose's crotch fungus.

I'm B positive. If you ever read video game manuals, many times you'll see characters with their blood types listed. Apparently in Japan your blood type is kind of like the equivalent of your horoscope; it tells a lot about your personality. I wonder what mine says about me.

Anyway, I gave blood on Friday. That was pretty fun. I spent the whole time laughing and cracking jokes with the Red Cross volunteers, even though I'm generally not very social. Awkward situations just make for good jokes. For some reason it was hilarious how my blood went squirt into a tiny bag. It just reminded me of those Caprisun fruit punch pouches. And Vampire the Masquerade. (Argh, my blood points!)

If I could do it more often, I would.

Surprisingly, a lot of people didn't know about it. Check up with the Red Cross, eh? You never know when your local vampire van will be coming by.

Sequel

.... so then my roommate's ex-boyfriend decided to have a nightcap consisting of six sleeping pills and a bottle of wine.

Comedy of Tragedies

... over winter break, back in January, me and Malex went to visit Nick up at Vassar in Poughkeepsie, NY for a weekend. Apparently neither me, Malex, nor Nick felt this blog-worthy, or just didn't bother. Me and Malex spent the four hour Greyhound ride each way holding awkwardsilence-free conversation, which is amazing considering we don't actually hold any sort of affinity towards each other. Possibly the most memorable thing about the commute was the commuter rail trip up from Grand Central Station (according to Malex, the biggest room in the world) along the Hudson, a grey frozen river and bare stark woods that climb up snowy hills. New England is an entity in itself, never mind that New York isn't technically New England.

When we took the taxi from the station into Vassar, we nearly wet ourselves when the cab drove through what was essentially a portcullis in the Vassar gatehouse. Nick lives at Hogwarts. For example: their library is a gothic cathedral. No shittin'.

I spent maybe the rest of the time being snowed under, deprived of natural light, depressed and re-evaluating my college choice. If the campus made me re-evaluate, the dorms made me re-evaluate the re-evaluating, being cramped cells from the sixties with flaking drywall. Bathrooms are co-ed, dimly lit (if not pitch black even during day time) stalls and showers. Strangely enough though, I found myself completely indifferent to random boys walking by as I brushed my teeth. Nick himself has apparently descended into madness, overworked and antisocial, dealing with an array of family and health problems, and for some reason known only to God has decided to switch his major to computer science.

"I took a few programming classes in high school," explains Nick who in those four years made his mark as an actor, a writer, a poet, a linguist, a political activist and an amateur psychologist. This in Non-Bullshit-ese means, "I hate my life but it's a Practical Major."

---

... and so my roommate broke up with her boyfriend, ODed on Tylenol, and is trying to develop the habit of eating, Kay's mom and my aunt have breast cancer, and Chris went all Vanyel on us by coming out of the closet, having father-and-alienation issues, hating his brother and cutting himself.

How are you?

Updates from Me

I'm on break. You knew that. Christmas was alright. Spent with the family at Stella's new house, which is surprisingly close to ours. Nathan is looking a lot better now and no longer has red rashes on his face, but he still looks fearful whenever he sees me. He doesn't do that with anyone else, just me. Even though they aren't terribly rational creatures, it still is a bit depressing to have a baby be scared of you.

Have finished the Da Vinci Code, which Stella gave me for Christmas. The writing is sucky but the plot is at least interesting, even if the 'riddles' are ludicrously easy. As for the 'big secret,' I don't give a damn either way.

Went out to Annapolis for New Years with Jeremy, for Annapolis' 'First Night,' a non-profit non-alcoholic set of New Year's Eve events. Basically, different public places in Annapolis, such as churches and schools, had performers scheduled to put on something every half an hour. It took approximately fifteen minutes to get from one site to another, so at best each performance we actually attended would be interspersed by another half hour of dead time consumed by walking/ waiting in line. And since many of the places were overcrowded, if you didn't get there within twenty minutes of the show starting the auditorium would be full, so you'd have to find another place to go, and that would eat up a whole hour. The performances themselves weren't spectacular. We listened to a calming, haunting, and aesthetically impressive, if not very exciting performance on Native American flute, saw a pretty stale comedy show and attended a jazz concert, the exuberant talent of which was muted by the presence of a non-smoky, fully lit room of unmoving middle-aged white people.

Which is not to say I didn't have fun. What really entertained me more than all the performances put together was the mad scavenger hunt nature of rushing from point A to point B, and having the whole of East Annapolis as your playground. Annapolis has 35,000 residents, as of the year 2000. Compare: Rockville has 47,000, and she's only a county seat. Annapolis is clearly not a booming metropolis. It is, however, capable of spawning twisty alleys, brick roads, colonial houses and taverns, knicknacky handicrafts shops, eye-boggling confectionaries, old style ice cream parlors, infinite varieties of small and cozy bookstore-coffeehouse hybrids, and everything strewn with wreaths, banners and Christmas lights. Add to that the domed State House, the governor's mansion, St. Anne's Church, and the meticulously manicured complex of the Naval Academy within its dignified walls (Hell to live in, but majestic to look at). Annapolis also hosts Maryland's Republican headquarters, being ritzy and upscale in a Georgetown kind of way. Across the street is the Christian Science Reading Room, but I don't want to think about that.

Strange story, this: One of the men at the Naval Academy called me 'ma'am.' That was weird. I've never been called ma'am by anyone.

Around midnight Jeremy and I thronged towards the city docks which were cordoned off by city fire and police, where everyone was gathered, oogling the sexual tension between the scantily-clad fire-eaters, or posing for photos in front of the state Christmas tree, calling home excitedly on cells, setting off sparklers and firecrackers, tooting on noisemakers, grabbing at balloons, crowding to get into the plethora of "Irish," floor-shaking-subwoofer pubs, and popping open bottles of champagne under black lights and disco balls on board of moored boats-turned-floating party platforms. Following a procession of bagpipers, firedancers, clowns, and partygoers, someone important up ahead gave a speech, and at eleven fifty-nine, although there was no clock and no ball, from up ahead the chant picked up at... 8...7....6... the chant spread out quickly through the crowd as they realized what was going on, and at zero, several thousand people all released their balloons at the same time, and some fairly generic fireworks exploded out over the water.

2^24036583-1 is now the largest known prime. Hurrah!

Look! I won two $10 Muvico gift certificates from a dining hall raffle! I never win raffles! Yay!!

Orcs Overrun Sims City

... so I was burning a CD for Jeremy when the drive caught on fire.

Again.

Mmmm.... carpet!

Take a gander at Sisters, a Wild West lesbian bodice-ripper written by Lynne Cheney in 1981. It's out of print now. Mrs. Cheney, for obvious reasons, refuses to have it re-printed... but you can read the entire book online.

Get it from Amazon!

Yale Owns Harvard

This is all true

What Kind of Geek are You?
Name
DOB
Favourite Color
Your IQ is	quite high
You are a	computer geek
Your strength is	you can see in the dark
Your weakness is	caffine
You think normal people are	aliens
Normal people think that you are	deranged
This fun quiz by owlsamantha - Taken 139779 Times.

New! Get Free Daily Horoscopes from Kwiz.Biz

Miscellany

Well I feel I should say what's been going on for like the last two months.

I was on the World of Warcraft open beta for two weeks or so, causing Jeremy to become the first ever Warcraft Widower. Most everyone I know had WoW- though Kay was playing with the color-contrast on his monitor way up, so that we'd get blinded every time we walked into Teldrassil. The night elf city has green grass and a purple sky! Oi! @___@ Anyway, I played a nudist dwarven Paladin who relinquishes her worldly goods (clothes) so that she may better contemplate virtue. Nobody believed her though. Then the beta ended and both me and Jeremy went through withdrawal.

In the middle of October, Jeremy moved into a nice apartment in Columbia in a complex called "Lazy Hollow," which Niall joked would be full of Mexicans. Still a nice place though, close to a bunch of restaurants (carry-out sushi!) and a grocery store, and with a balcony and woods out back. Moving in is a bit like playing the Sims... there's so much unused potential to every room, when the place doesn't resemble a home yet and like clay, you have all the unshaped dreams in your head. We spent the first day or so assembling furniture, including a very reluctant dinner table, the metal of which we actually had to warp in order to get the bolts to fit.

We went to a pumpkin patch for Halloween and got pumpkins to make jacko-lanterns out of. We still have the pumpkin goop in the freezer for a pie sometime.

Jeremy got to vote in Maryland. Despite having lived most of his life in Pennsylvania, he wasn't allowed to cast an absentee ballot for there because he happened to move to Maryland like a week before the election. That bummed me out slightly, but since Kerry won Pennsylvania our consciences are clear.

I learned to knit. I made a stupid generic tan scarf. I plan to knit dicebags for my RPing group; with my fuschia dice bag and hot pink die, I plan to be the girliest RPer to ever walk the earth.

I've also been learning to cook, with more opportunities at Jeremy's place to experiment, and Jeremy's been teaching me. I took a picture of a sight that brings me joy; a cute guy cooking breakfast for me in the morning, in tight-fitting underwear (and nothing else). Also, I shall use this digital picture for blackmail. As for cooking, I'm amazed that it's really not that hard. My mom always made it seem like some big mystery. Back when I lived at home, I remember recriminations somewhat along the lines of this: "I cook for you every day and do your laundry! The least you can do is (blank)!" But whenever I'd try to cook to release myself from my debt, my mom would always hurry me away, saying impatiently, "I'll do it!" as if I was fated to mess up or something. Most of the time she thought cooking was a waste of time for me and wanted me to do schoolwork or something. Even if I had no more homework to do, you can always do more "schoolwork." (Sadly, in the IB, this was even mostly true). But anyway, now I am no longer inept at cooking. My crowning achievement is sliced fried potatoes. Yay. I can also make French toast. With peanut butter. This last bit makes Jeremy's head explode. "But.. but... syrup!!!" He has real maple syrup though, the good kind. I can't really blame him.

We had sex too. Nobody reads my blog, and those that do never read my long posts in their entirety, so I'm confident that my secret is safe. Does it feel good? Not really. It hurts a lot, less than getting a cramp while swimming but more than giving blood (though neither comparison is really apt, because it's a different kind of pain, like being torn open. Being that mine is not really a pain-filled life, it's hard to describe). Despite that though, there's a feeling of vulnerability that forges intense trust during the act, and irrational bubbly happiness for hours afterwards. I don't think it was terribly transformative; I'm not one of those medieval girls who one day is playing with dolls, and the next day, once she's had her first period, is whisked off to her marriage bed and then can't see unicorns anymore. Looking back, I think I lost my virginity over a long period of time and not in any one act. (This probably makes sense only to me).

Happy Thanksgiving, y'all.

Time to Punch Something

I'm glad Kerry conceded, though I'm rather upset at the outcome. I can't say I'm too surprised because the Republicans really had their act together and an amazingly effective attack machine against Kerry. Besides, Bush was an incumbent war president. It was an uphill battle anyway, what with the advantageous position of the Republican National Convention coming after the Democratic one, and Bush getting to close the debates last, and the whole Swift Boat thing (which Bush didn't sponsor, but which helped him). All the big Democratic punches, the convention and Fahrenheit 9/11, happened during the summer and the sentiment dissipated by October.

Fuck the "Anti-Bush." I wish that a pro-Kerry documentary could've been more widely accessible, as opposed to Fahrenheit 9/11, an anti-Bush tract. I saw "Going Upriver," a documentary about Kerry in Vietnam, and it was then that I believed in him. It was only the day before the election, and I saw how courageous and gracious he was as a 27-year old speaking before a Senate Committee. At 27 he made an impact like a meteor, his five minutes of airtime on the national news- five minutes on the news, mind you- riveting the nation, President Nixon, the FBI. 27, hm? What am I going to be doing in eight years? I thought to myself, watching that footage, "There goes the president of the United States."

I wish they'd count the absentee ballots and the provisional ballots. Right now I feel like my vote doesn't really matter, like my vote somehow wasn't "worth" as much as other votes because it was an absentee ballot, because it wasn't in a swing state. I want my vote to be just the same as everyone else's. I know they will count them, but it just seems like an afterthought and a joke right now. And in these four years, with everything that's happened, the states were still pretty much divided the same way as they were in 2000. How many people were actually informed voters, and how many people just voted the party line? The debates didn't seem to matter at all. Young people didn't make a difference after all. After all that we tried, we didn't change a single thing. But I'm glad it was at least a clean election. Thank God for that.

>____<

Today was my first day working at the soup kitchen in Baltimore's East Side. Not because I'm compassionate or noble or whatever; I really don't care about poor people. This sometimes puts me at odds with my extremely liberal group which likes Raising Awareness and Advocates Causes and whatnot. I think Raising Awareness is pretty lame; for example we're doing this event where we give out pieces of candy with hunger trivia facts on them. This isn't even for fundraising, we're just Raising Awareness. First off, I think we're giving candy to the wrong people. Since we're trying to feed the hungry and all, maybe we ought to give candy to, you know, the hungry people. But maybe that's just me. Also, who the fuck needs to raise awareness for hunger? Who doesn't know what hunger is? "Aw Jeez, I'm so full right now! I never knew people could not be full all the time!!"

Also, I personally, think it's subtly wrong if you Care About the Poor, to spend other people's money. You're just a glorified beggar, guilting other people into donating THEIR hard-earned money for your Good Cause. Presumably if you really cared you'd spend some of your own grubby money. You'd get a job and donate your proceeds to charity, or build a house for the homeless or cook food for the hungry or tend the sick. It'd be part of yourself you'd be giving, not part of other people like a fucking commie. Besides, in these fundraising things, the cost of fliers and your non-profit bread-and-circus type events is probably almost as prohibitive as the proceeds. "A portion of proceeds goes to..." Fuck that. However, I also think that as a person I ought to accumulate as many different experiences as possible, which is why I went to the soup kitchen.

I think I spent the time in a state of perpetual frustration. I went into the shelter's "office," which was just basically a room with stuff strewn about it. You know, tables, stacked up chairs, a tiny tv, somone's shitty computer, crappy cast-off shit that people donate to charities for the tax deduction. Nothing was in working order; there weren't labels on anything so we didn't know where anything was. Additionally, Miss Rose, who runs the shelter, didn't have anything meaningful for us to do, and her ebonics coupled with old person talk made her completely incoherent. This meant that she'd tell us to do something trivial, like fetch her the newspaper, and we wouldn't know what she said or where to get it. By the time we actually deciphered her request and found, for example, the newspaper, she could've up and got it herself. Miss Rose is a wonderful lady, but we were the most inefficient team to ever walk the face of the Earth. Miss Rose is damn well capable of running her shelter pretty much by herself with Carlos and Plata. We were just kind of... there. I felt so retarded.

"They all ladies," said Miss Rose. Despite the fact that there were seven girls and we insisted that we were strong willing, Miss Rose refused to let us help do the heavy lifting. So one scrawny boy from our group was appropriated by Carlos and Plata (two elderly men) to move donated furniture into the house across the street, while seven young women of differing athletic ability stood around because ladies just aren't of help.

In general, we had seven volunteers with nothing to do. The first thing we did was carry boxes of cans downstairs. Except that we didn't need the last box of cans so carrying it down was completely unecessary. Because there were so many of us, we even clogged each other in the halls. Then we sorted the cans, filled plastic bags with five cans and a loaf of bread, and placed the bags on a counter for people coming into the shelter to take them home. That was it. We got it done pretty quickly, assembly-line style with eight of us, but Carlos and Plata could've done it. Maybe it would've taken them a longer, but they could've done it, unlike the eight of us who got it done in like five minutes and spent the next hour milling around in awkward silence.

We didn't serve food or use the canned food to cook meals for people; we just gave them bags of cans and sent them on their way. Plata was eating a breakfast of canned corn. How pathetic is that? These dozens of people coming in and their major source of sustenance is eating canned corn. It's the saddest thing in the world; People just throw a can into a cardboard box during a canned food drive and, having done their "duty" to charity, consider the problem taken care of. And meanwhile people are eating canned corn for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and that's our solution. Let's throw another fucking can into the cardboard box. I think next week I'm going to bake some brownies the night before so Plata can eat some real food.

After the can-sorting, as an interuption from the aimless milling, I went with another girl into the urine-soaked backyard. This is something that's really notable about the 'hood (as Carlos calls it). We, as middle class college students, just take for granted that the campus doesn't smell. Sometimes I think, "I'm really fortunate to have a place to stay at night," or, "I'm really lucky to have food on the table," but I've never ever thought to think, "Man, I'm so grateful my house doesn't smell like piss." Well, the next time you say grace, if you do that sort of thing, after you've thanked Our Father Who Art in Heaven for your daily bread, thank him for a reeking-piss-free life too. In any case, we put donated clothes, which hadn't been washed, into different bags. At the end we were left with a giant pile of mismatched shoes and socks we had to throw out because some IDIOTS decided it would be a good idea to donate clothes to charity one sock at a time.

I honestly think most "volunteer opportunities" don't actually help people and are created for the benefit of volunteers to feel better about themselves.

I saw some people outside sweeping the sidewalk so I told everyone, "Hey, it looks like they need help, let's go join them." At this point, maybe an hour into our little trip, we had literally nothing left to do. Ostensibly we were suppose to give people plastic bags full of those goddamned cans of peas and corn, and by "give" I mean, "inadvertantly make them feel intimidated as they come into the shelter to pick up bags of food on the counter in front of them, revealing their lack of financial independence to seven random strangers trying not to stare."

So I said that we should go outside and help the community clean the gutters. Since we had rubber gloves and trash bags, we could pick up trash. But everyone was saying, "Eh..what if people don't like us going into their property?" What they meant was: "Eh.. I really don't feel like it..".. because there were people already outside cleaning the streets and sidewalks (completely public areas) and when I asked Miss Rose if the community would be hostile towards the idea, she said they'd love it. My group said, "Gee, you really want to clean, don't you?" but nobody actually moved to do anything. So we sat around making small talk for the next half an hour.

Some people left to go to the Ford Rally, a rally to protest Ford's new hybrid vehicle. Apparently, Ford's new hybrid is a "a marketing ploy to distract people from realizing the fuel inefficiency of Ford's other models" and we need to boycott Ford. Apparently the great plan to save the environment is to boycott companies when they start trying to reform.

Then, one lady, Miss Anne, came in to chat with Miss Rose, and then took a broom and dustpan and started sweeping up trash in the gutters. I got the rubber gloves and trash bag and went outside after her (she had the only broom) because I wasn't going to let a frail, elderly woman who relies on a soup kitchen to make ends meet clean up trash while FIVE young college students sit on their asses talking about who's doing what major. So I had two people come with me from the group and we picked up trash and threw it in the trash bag.

"Gee, people living here must really like pixie sticks," said a girl I was working with, after we had picked up a plethora of small tube wrappers filled with white powder.

After we finished cleaning the street as best as we were able, that was about time to leave. We met up with the two people who hadn't gone on the cleaning expedition with us, who had been chatting about their majors.

---
Carlos says they need "jobs. It don't matter if it McDonalds, we just need something to make us feel like we worth somethin'." He wants to write a book someday. During the cleaning, besides Miss Anne, we'd met a young woman who told us how she appreciated what we did, and James, who'd been sweeping the streets for eight years. We met an easy-going bald man who joked about us being "working gals," and an old man who would put milk out in little tuna cans for the stray cats that belong to the whole neighborhood.

---

We thought maybe for lunch we could visit to a cadre of young men from the "Jefferson Group," who had been friendly to us when we'd arrived and invited us to eat at the deli on the corner. However, the girl leading our group didn't want to go.

"The less time we spend in this neighborhood, the better," she said, "This place scares me."

... so we went to the NSA museum and we pushed the power button on the Cray supercomputer and all the microprocessor lights turned off. Except then the alarm went off and we ran away. But then we snuck back in and pressed the 'disable alarm' button. So it was all good.

As a writing exercise, I was supposed to write about a place on campus. This is:

The Drainage Ditch By the Admin Parking Lot

A monolithic bunker stands, concrete and compact, beside the grotto overlapped in green. Tiers upon tiers of cars and their glinting window panes rise above dirt, grass, trees. Light flashes through the leaves, the glare off glass and metal. Twinkling like stars, the sunburst flares briefly and then becomes shadowed by the swaying of arboreal curtains. Wind-bent branches and leafy canopy swim above my head and cast their reflections below me into the hazy water. The water runs trickling from the rim of a cement tube, a giant’s jar tipped over, into a pool so thick and murky that the water seems almost solid. Chalky rocks, white and angular, tumble down into the gully where the excess water flows and from the deep-rooted soil, the dark and soft trees reach towards the sky.

The Conservative Case Against George W. Bush

... but I put it out, eventually.

....so somebody decided to use my credit card number to finance an all-expense paid shopping trip to Miami, and my laptop caught fire after something got jammed in the floppy drive.

It's a little embarrassing that I don't know who my suitemates are. Oh, I know who they are because I know their names, and being that I have two suitemates, I have a fifty-fifty chance of calling one the right name. But it's problematic when I'm bringing back the mail and don't know who to give it to. And who wants to tell people they live with that they've forgotten their names?

A really frickin' long description of the Baltimore Aquarium.

Keep on Swimming: The Place Where "Finding Nemo" Quotes Are Said So Often They Get Annoying

Went to the Baltimore Aquarium last Friday. The lobby has a walkway over a pool of sting rays. The water's clear enough that the sting rays, with wings slowly fanning the water, or rippling like the flanges of hovercraft, look like they're flying above the pool bottom.

At the very top of the museum is the rainforest exhibit encased in a glass greenhouse, which also serves as the aquarium's roof. It was close to the aquarium's closing time, and the rainforest was damp and dark. Everything was asleep, except for large toads that sat in dark areas of the footpath, waiting to be stepped on. I saw a sleeping scarlet ibis, which I'd only known about from the story, with head tucked into wing, one leg delicately lifted and the other spindly leg balanced on a cable like some sort of tightrope walking ballerina. It graciously woke up for me, its head swiveling on its long neck. The sloth hanging against an unfortunately shadowed section of mesh, was merely a dark, furry silhouette.

Went to the dolphin show too and sat in the splash zone (aka front row seats), but I was off by the side so I didn't get splashed. In the middle of an arena is a giant tank. You walk up to what appears to be basically a wall of glass that's taller than you are, and you think, "Oh, a seven foot deep tank," which is pretty impressive in itself. However, if you stand next to it and look down, you see the dizzying drop-off where the straight walls of the tank extend, far below your feet. (It's 25 feet deep, actually).

For the show, lights come on inside the pool, they turn the lights off around the stadium, and all of the water glows. The glass is so thick that the distortion is intense. If a dolphin is under water, the dark figure you see at the surface of the water and the figure you see through the glass are in such drastically different locations that sometimes you'd confuse them for two dolphins. If a dolphin or trainer is partway in the water, the part that is above and the part that is below the water seem spliced like twenty feet away from each other. That's how thick the glass is. It's an impressive feat in itself.

Dolphins are strange animals. Because of all that's said about the bond between humans and dolphins, I think I'd subconsciously expected them to look more anthropomorphic, to smile or wink or something. Of course, instead, they looked just like other animals, with expressions that are completely inscrutable. In simpler terms, they aren't really as cute as they're hyped up to be. However, the power in their muscles and their bursts of energy are simply amazing. Maybe you don't think about this except when you see dolphins up close, but dolphins are big, and their sleek musculature is a sight to see.

The show itself was fantastic, but I don't think I as a spectator could describe it to you in a way so that you'd get a better impression than by say, just watching a tape. It is different from watching it on tv though. Take my word for it. They did some stuff, like stand on their tails and propel themselves backwards, splash the audience, beach themselves on shallows and wave, play catch with balls in their mouths, jump into the air to hit a ball with their noses, and swim around dragging a trainer behind at the speed of a small (and completely silent!) motor boat. Stuff you see on tv. But, because it's in real life, better.

If you take a set of stairs under the stadium, you can see through a great glass window at the bottom of the tank. If you look up, you see the underside of the surface of the water, twenty five feet above your head. This is like the height of a two and a half storey building, if such a thing were to exist, or a sizeable city wall. It's intimidating. The glass is thick here too, and curved to bulge outward. At certain points because of the distortion, the dolphins will appear to swim out of the tank. Up close against the glass, you notice their imprefections. Scars here, splotches there, signs of age and experience. Maybe it's just me looking too much into things.

Outside the dolphin arena is a section of the aquarium with all sorts of interactive activities. I stood in a little booth where a computerized voice measured my height. I'm five foot four and a quarter inches, the exact length of a harbor dolphin. I'm so proud.

In another section of the aquarium, there's a racetrack shaped tank, filled with coral and tropical fish, and in the middle of it is a walkway that spirals downward along the inward wall. Because of its shape, all the fish swim in one direction in laps, as if there were some invisible traffic cop. All the fish are pretty cool, like some square-headed fish that look as if they were beaten out of aluminum foil, and an unpuffed puffer fish the size of a watermelon. As you descend the spiral walk, the lapping fish follow you. At night, near closing time when most people have left and the lights are dimmed out of consideration for the sleeping fish, this tank is a bit creepy in its loneliness.

The spiral track descends under the coral tank, the wall around the walk is covered with black silhouettes of different species of sharks, rimmed by purple light. Any babies being carried by their parents begin crying at this point. Under the wall of cutouts, we reach the racetrack shaped shark tank. Unlike the coral tank, it's not filled with color but monochromes. The sharks drift slowly around in laps (traffic cop again), like floating starships of science fiction. In the silence and serenity that fills the expanse, several people sit on the floor, studying. There are ugly sharks and beautiful sharks, sharks sorely in need of braces with teeth jutting out of their mouths every which way, sharks plopped down upon the sand, sharks with skin shimmering iridescent under the intermitant shafts of light, to disappear into the unlit sections of the pool on regular intervals. There's a door in the side of the shark pool, big enough for a human. I wonder why it's there.

Under the shark tank, if you descend further, you reach a window that peeks into the bottom of the sting ray tank, and if you exit that, you're back in the lobby again.

More angst!

See, for an English assignment I have to write a story from the point of view of the guy in this poem.

Being that I've never had a loved one or even a pet die on me, I find it difficult wrapping my head around this whole "grief" mindset, especially with my roommate playing upbeat rock music.

So I'd like to take this time to dredge up my going to college blog posts compilation, kind of like a "best hits" album.

Anyway, I don't know the ethics of quoting blog posts nearly verbatim for English assignments though, so to be safe I won't do it. Bummer. It'll force me to write new material every once in a while, I suppose. I wonder how much I'm allowed to lift; because if I can't use any of my blog, then that means I can't write (in future assignments) about anything that's happened to me for the last three years. Anything of note that's happened to me for the last three years I've written about in my blog already (okay, maybe some stuff about Jeremy that'd be too private to go into an English assignment anyway) and in creative nonfiction format too, so I'm screwed.

Quote of the Day

"Prick the sacred cow!"

-my econ professor on small business, mixing his idioms.