so, i guess i've finally "gotten over" the whole mystery girl thing, in a sense. i have this process (an unconscious one, to be sure) that goes something like this:
1. become friends with someone who is a girl.
2. (in certain cases) decide that, since my ideal relationship is essentially not much different than just being good friends with someone, i have a huge crush on a girl that i am friends with.
3. vacillate wildly back-and-forth for awhile between trying to decide if sharing my feelings and risking the integrity of the abovementioned friendship is better or worse than just pretending nothing has changed.
4. i eventually decide not to say anything. time passes in which i semi-awkwardly continue hanging out with whatever girl this is.
5. i'm fairly disappointed about the outcome of things, but as my only relationship-oriented thoughts at this point are usually pretty self-centered, i continue on as-is.
6. one day i wake up and realize that what i really want for my friend is for her to be happy with her life, whether that involves me in any capacity (or not).
7. rinse, wash, repeat.
i think the reason i eventually always turn to step 6 is because between steps 2-5, i have a lot of moments where i realize that i've become extremely possessive of this other person, whether it be of their time, their attention, the time they spend with other people, whatever. and that always bothers the shit out of me. that's fucking unhealthy as all hell. but i don't know how to stop doing it, which is why i always end up at step 7 (and therefore back at step 1). at some point in the crushing process, the other person becomes this 2-dimensional idealized version of their real self to me, and in the process of turning them into that i become completely disgusted with myself. it starts to become less about how much i care about this person and more about how i just want to be with somebody because, well, it would be fun for me. which fucking sucks. and is bad and all that.
fortunately, at step 7 i am once again thinking of the victim (ha) as a human being...
so i woke up this morning and realized that i have hit step 7 with mystery girl. faster than i thought it would happen, for sure, but i'm glad it did. i've had way too many moments in my interactions with her lately that have been more about me wanting to make myself feel like she cared about me than about actually just interacting, or hanging out. i hate that shit. until i sort all this out, i'm either going to have to not actually date anyone (likely anyway), or find someone with the patience of a fucking saint (unlikely).
so, time to send mystery girl off in the ether, i guess...or at least my concept of the version of her that i would ideally be romancing. but none of that shit exists outside of my head anyway, so good riddance.
now i can actually be a decent friend again. which is the important part. arg.
Dec 30, 2008
baby pictures
i'll try to put some photos of fender jr. up here in a bit. i can't seem to stop watching rush videos...it's like that crazy celtic frost/80s metallica phase i went through at the end of last semester. only now it's with rush.
I THINK RUSH IS AWESOME.
I THINK RUSH IS AWESOME.
back to life
well, i think i've finally (mostly) shrugged off whatever the fuck has kept my ass on the floor for the last six or seven days. fender jr. came in yesterday too...this is my first real post using him. it's a fucking awesome computer; aside from the "small" caveat that i had to charge 1000 bucks to get him because i was a fucking idiot and knocked diet coke into my old laptop, i'm really happy. definitely worth the money, and hopefully it will take me up through the rest of my ph.d program.
after which i can celebrate not having a job, ever, by buying a replacement...
i smiled as i typed that, if that changes anything.
i'd still like to upgrade my desktop, because there have been tons of incredible games out in the last two years or so, but honestly, though i still really enjoy playing a great video game, it's one of those things that are up there on the same level as "i love to spend 3 straight days watching movies and sleeping"; there's just not really that much time for it anymore. it's not like i've decided i like doing something else better, it's just that by the time i do everything else that's important, i have like 2 hours a week left...so i'm not sure it's worth spending 300-400 bucks to upgrade my computer just so it can sit there and do nothing.
i still have this crazy dream of someday getting a PA system too, and being able to reliably gig, but that's yet another thing that's limited a lot by a) money and b) the fact that spending that money isn't really justifiable if i'm just going to spend all day and night in my office 25 days a month.
i'm still holding out hope for the digital videocamera/movie editing thing to come through (because that would be a cool-as-fuck hobby to have), but for now i'm just focusing on (no pun intended) taking good pictures and fucking around with a few of the great freeware editing programs i found (paint.net!)
so that's that, if anyone cares.
looks like we're going to make another go of the susan's show on saturday (the third) if my throat is working by then.
after which i can celebrate not having a job, ever, by buying a replacement...
i smiled as i typed that, if that changes anything.
i'd still like to upgrade my desktop, because there have been tons of incredible games out in the last two years or so, but honestly, though i still really enjoy playing a great video game, it's one of those things that are up there on the same level as "i love to spend 3 straight days watching movies and sleeping"; there's just not really that much time for it anymore. it's not like i've decided i like doing something else better, it's just that by the time i do everything else that's important, i have like 2 hours a week left...so i'm not sure it's worth spending 300-400 bucks to upgrade my computer just so it can sit there and do nothing.
i still have this crazy dream of someday getting a PA system too, and being able to reliably gig, but that's yet another thing that's limited a lot by a) money and b) the fact that spending that money isn't really justifiable if i'm just going to spend all day and night in my office 25 days a month.
i'm still holding out hope for the digital videocamera/movie editing thing to come through (because that would be a cool-as-fuck hobby to have), but for now i'm just focusing on (no pun intended) taking good pictures and fucking around with a few of the great freeware editing programs i found (paint.net!)
so that's that, if anyone cares.
looks like we're going to make another go of the susan's show on saturday (the third) if my throat is working by then.
Dec 29, 2008
susan's gig rescheduled for 1/3
since i obviously couldn't sing on saturday, on account of not even being able to talk for 4 days, andrea and i decided to move the show back to next saturday. i'm not terribly optimistic considering how my nose and throat still feel right now, but i'm keeping my fingers crossed. and my toes.
bullocks
day six. still sick.
i'm not usually whiny about being sick because a) i don't get sick that often and b) when i do, it's never very bad, so i feel like i should be grateful. but after being sick for nigh on a week four times this semester, i'm sort of getting frustrated. i mean, i can't figure out what's causing it...obviously the travelling, weird weather, and double-all-nighters could be to blame for this latest time, but otherwise...i don't know.
i mean, aside from a few isolated incidents, i've been sleeping more this semester than i normally do, i've been eating better, and i quit smoking (two months, ftw!)...soooooo...what the hell, immune system?
i mean, i appreciate the occasional need for the body to reboot itself, but the last time i was sick was over thanksgiving break, which pushed my seattle trip back 3 or 4 days, and now i've been sitting in the basement of my parents' house for almost 10 days. i'm a little worried that i won't get better in time to destroy myself on new year's.
i don't know, it's just frustrating...i love my job and so i try not to complain about the crazy hours so much, but it sucks when you get maybe 2-3 days a month when you're not working 12 or more hours a day and then those days end up having to be spent over-medicated and laying on a couch with goo dripping out of your eyes.
plus, it sounds like i have a job in pullman for the summer, and that's great news, but it also means that this might possibly be the last time i'm in ohio until next christmas. i guess bitching isn't going to magically make me heathier...
i'm not usually whiny about being sick because a) i don't get sick that often and b) when i do, it's never very bad, so i feel like i should be grateful. but after being sick for nigh on a week four times this semester, i'm sort of getting frustrated. i mean, i can't figure out what's causing it...obviously the travelling, weird weather, and double-all-nighters could be to blame for this latest time, but otherwise...i don't know.
i mean, aside from a few isolated incidents, i've been sleeping more this semester than i normally do, i've been eating better, and i quit smoking (two months, ftw!)...soooooo...what the hell, immune system?
i mean, i appreciate the occasional need for the body to reboot itself, but the last time i was sick was over thanksgiving break, which pushed my seattle trip back 3 or 4 days, and now i've been sitting in the basement of my parents' house for almost 10 days. i'm a little worried that i won't get better in time to destroy myself on new year's.
i don't know, it's just frustrating...i love my job and so i try not to complain about the crazy hours so much, but it sucks when you get maybe 2-3 days a month when you're not working 12 or more hours a day and then those days end up having to be spent over-medicated and laying on a couch with goo dripping out of your eyes.
plus, it sounds like i have a job in pullman for the summer, and that's great news, but it also means that this might possibly be the last time i'm in ohio until next christmas. i guess bitching isn't going to magically make me heathier...
Dec 28, 2008
i can't decide...
...what the best part of this virus is. is it:
1. the constant pain in my lower back/kidney area?
2. 102-degree fever and accompanying shivering sweat-baths?
3. going through 5 boxes of kleenex in 4 days and still not being able to breathe?
4. coughing up wads of blood and snot combined?
5. 96 hour headache?
6. looking at things hurts?
7. taking a shower = getting beaten by gargoyles wearing Pantera t-shirts?
8. not getting to taste pizza?
yeah, it's definitely #8...sorry, that was sort of a trick question.
i might be at the point, after hitting the level of afrin-usage that dictates my chances of getting rhinitis medicamentosa are over 50 percent AND taking enough aspirin for five days that i'm a handful of pills away from AERD, that i should try a different treatment.
i'm seriously considering the diet-coke-for-6-hours-and-then-vodka approach. hey, it worked last time...somehow...
1. the constant pain in my lower back/kidney area?
2. 102-degree fever and accompanying shivering sweat-baths?
3. going through 5 boxes of kleenex in 4 days and still not being able to breathe?
4. coughing up wads of blood and snot combined?
5. 96 hour headache?
6. looking at things hurts?
7. taking a shower = getting beaten by gargoyles wearing Pantera t-shirts?
8. not getting to taste pizza?
yeah, it's definitely #8...sorry, that was sort of a trick question.
i might be at the point, after hitting the level of afrin-usage that dictates my chances of getting rhinitis medicamentosa are over 50 percent AND taking enough aspirin for five days that i'm a handful of pills away from AERD, that i should try a different treatment.
i'm seriously considering the diet-coke-for-6-hours-and-then-vodka approach. hey, it worked last time...somehow...
nothing new from the front.
day five. still sick.
i was hoping to make it up to kent tonight to see some people since i haven't been up there yet...no dice, though. i'm a little disappointed, but honestly just having a few hours in which i can breathe without hearing this disgusting chest-rattle would be awesome.
i really need to start planning my 201, but my eyes get extremely pissed whenever i insist they focus on things.
gah.
i was hoping to make it up to kent tonight to see some people since i haven't been up there yet...no dice, though. i'm a little disappointed, but honestly just having a few hours in which i can breathe without hearing this disgusting chest-rattle would be awesome.
i really need to start planning my 201, but my eyes get extremely pissed whenever i insist they focus on things.
gah.
Dec 27, 2008
a day in the life
since i'm just wasting some time (probably a few days) waiting for my immune system to come back online, i thought it might be fun to take a look back at previous december blog-posts. here's part of one from december 8th, 2004:
"so...i just entered a few print jobs in the queue at the computer lab...stuff i have to print out and then fill out for grad school. well, i went up to the printer to log on and print them off, when i noticed a little sign that read "pdf files...speak with lab monitor before printing". unfortunately, when i was asked for my name by the computer when i clicked print, i entered "robotic rocket shoes!". so now i face the conundrum of going up to the monitor and explaining why i'm the guy named "robotic rocket shoes". if i had cooler shoes on, maybe i'd feel better about the whole thing.
as it stands, i just feel silly.
and my pelvis hurts."
"so...i just entered a few print jobs in the queue at the computer lab...stuff i have to print out and then fill out for grad school. well, i went up to the printer to log on and print them off, when i noticed a little sign that read "pdf files...speak with lab monitor before printing". unfortunately, when i was asked for my name by the computer when i clicked print, i entered "robotic rocket shoes!". so now i face the conundrum of going up to the monitor and explaining why i'm the guy named "robotic rocket shoes". if i had cooler shoes on, maybe i'd feel better about the whole thing.
as it stands, i just feel silly.
and my pelvis hurts."
fender jr.
fender jr. left his nest in shanghai today. he's supposed to be here by the 31st. i'm glad i'll be getting him in time to get all the necessary programs and compatibilities built in before i have to start back at work. and who knows? if totally horrible things stop happening to me every 2-3 days, i might even have time to play a game of starcraft or two.
i let the guy on the phone convince me that it was worth upgrading to 64-bit and 4GB of RAM (for no extra charge, of course). i hope that wasn't a mistake, but i was thinking in terms of longevity. if i wasn't such a packrat and didn't have so much fun using old programs/converting .shn files/playing starcraft it wouldn't even have been a decision...but now i'm afraid some of my shit won't stack up or be usable in the 64-bit world. mostly, though, i'll just be happy to have a laptop again. i always swore i'd never be one of "those" people who used their credit card for anything but food or rent money, but having a laptop makes me work life so much easier it's hard to describe in words. is it worth having 1000 dollars on my credit card that's probably going to take me a year to pay off? yeah, i think so.
feeling a bit better today. no fever (or if there is one, it's very low). i do have large amounts of blood coming out of my nose everytime i blow it, which is about every 2 minutes. it also makes eating fun, since not only can i not breathe through my nose at all, when i do manage to swallow a bit of something, it tastes like blood. it's really disconcerting when neon orange sherbet tastes like raw meat.
arg.
i let the guy on the phone convince me that it was worth upgrading to 64-bit and 4GB of RAM (for no extra charge, of course). i hope that wasn't a mistake, but i was thinking in terms of longevity. if i wasn't such a packrat and didn't have so much fun using old programs/converting .shn files/playing starcraft it wouldn't even have been a decision...but now i'm afraid some of my shit won't stack up or be usable in the 64-bit world. mostly, though, i'll just be happy to have a laptop again. i always swore i'd never be one of "those" people who used their credit card for anything but food or rent money, but having a laptop makes me work life so much easier it's hard to describe in words. is it worth having 1000 dollars on my credit card that's probably going to take me a year to pay off? yeah, i think so.
feeling a bit better today. no fever (or if there is one, it's very low). i do have large amounts of blood coming out of my nose everytime i blow it, which is about every 2 minutes. it also makes eating fun, since not only can i not breathe through my nose at all, when i do manage to swallow a bit of something, it tastes like blood. it's really disconcerting when neon orange sherbet tastes like raw meat.
arg.
Dec 24, 2008
by-tor and the snow dog
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| From Other and Posts |
rockin' a little of by-tor right now. good stuffs. time to go put on the ol' suit and tie and be a person...fuuuuuuuck.
helps a bit that the hairs is extra messy. going to stalk pads, too. hope she doesn't hate me yet. you know, because later will be fine.
back to ohio, part eleventy
sounds like i made it out just in time. the entire west coast was pretty much raped my mother nature this past week, and as far as i know nothing is going in or coming out without serious trouble (that's what she said?).
but anyway, i'm back in the EST.
it's a weird sensation, even more so than usual. i think i'm finally getting to the point where i've been in pullman long enough that it seems wrong to not be there. i mean, with the exception of my very first semester there, i've always liked it, but when i've come back to ohio i've always felt more at home, more like i'm where i'm supposed to be, and that my temporary vacation in pullman is over while i take some time "off".
i suddenly don't feel that way this time. i'm glad to be here, glad to be able to spend the holidays with my family, glad to be able to catch up with my friends here, but at the same time, i miss being in my apartment, i miss my friends, i miss hanging out at the office trying to find ways to fit 12 hours of work into 6 hours of time, i miss mystery girl (even though i shouldn't, but i've realized i'm fucked in that regard as far as common sense goes).
so i guess what i'm saying is...i'll be glad to be back in january. assuming the entire state hasn't been buried under snow.
christmas eve tonight. time to drink a shitload of alcohol and pretend i'm normal.
go jesus!
but anyway, i'm back in the EST.
it's a weird sensation, even more so than usual. i think i'm finally getting to the point where i've been in pullman long enough that it seems wrong to not be there. i mean, with the exception of my very first semester there, i've always liked it, but when i've come back to ohio i've always felt more at home, more like i'm where i'm supposed to be, and that my temporary vacation in pullman is over while i take some time "off".
i suddenly don't feel that way this time. i'm glad to be here, glad to be able to spend the holidays with my family, glad to be able to catch up with my friends here, but at the same time, i miss being in my apartment, i miss my friends, i miss hanging out at the office trying to find ways to fit 12 hours of work into 6 hours of time, i miss mystery girl (even though i shouldn't, but i've realized i'm fucked in that regard as far as common sense goes).
so i guess what i'm saying is...i'll be glad to be back in january. assuming the entire state hasn't been buried under snow.
christmas eve tonight. time to drink a shitload of alcohol and pretend i'm normal.
go jesus!
inifinity blues
got RA's new book, with the bonus chapbook...both hand-signed and numbered. very cool.
i want to read the book, but i also want to mark the shit out of it with a pen while i'm reading it...so i'm going to wait until april i think when the paperback edition comes out. then i can buy a copy i can draw in.
i want to read the book, but i also want to mark the shit out of it with a pen while i'm reading it...so i'm going to wait until april i think when the paperback edition comes out. then i can buy a copy i can draw in.
that shit slays me every time
everyone who has ever read this blog is familiar with my restraining-order-level obsession with zooey deschanel, so i won't delve into it in any new depth here. however, i just wanted to say that as a result of my recent freakout over her and m.ward's collaboration (new m.ward album coming soon, hells yes), i seem to have forgotten that she's also been in a few of those...um...what do you call them? moving pictures?
so last night i went to see her new movie (jim carrey is also in it, but that's sort of incidental to my point). good christ, i'm glad women like that doesn't exist in the standard social sphere of american life experience or i would constantly be a total wreck. there have been a few women in my life over the years that, for various reasons directly connected to being attractive or badass or adorable or some mad combination of those things have basically reduced me to a flaming plane crash of idiocy and ga-ga-ness for a few weeks or months at a time. this would be like 1000 times worse.
the movie was decent, but i have the feeling i shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as i did...zooey has this ability to weave this gauzy audrey-hepburn-esque fog over any movie she's in, thus making it extremely palatable. if she's ever in an actually decent movie (okay, "hitchhiker's guide" was awesome) i'll probably have to own it and watch it a few times a day, to the detriment of the rest of my life/responsibilities.
so last night i went to see her new movie (jim carrey is also in it, but that's sort of incidental to my point). good christ, i'm glad women like that doesn't exist in the standard social sphere of american life experience or i would constantly be a total wreck. there have been a few women in my life over the years that, for various reasons directly connected to being attractive or badass or adorable or some mad combination of those things have basically reduced me to a flaming plane crash of idiocy and ga-ga-ness for a few weeks or months at a time. this would be like 1000 times worse.
the movie was decent, but i have the feeling i shouldn't have enjoyed it as much as i did...zooey has this ability to weave this gauzy audrey-hepburn-esque fog over any movie she's in, thus making it extremely palatable. if she's ever in an actually decent movie (okay, "hitchhiker's guide" was awesome) i'll probably have to own it and watch it a few times a day, to the detriment of the rest of my life/responsibilities.
Dec 21, 2008
521 prompt #11, or "the healing power of nature/blank verse"
in response to this prompt…
John Ray Knott in his book Imagining Wild America writes, “many of Abbey’s descriptive passages [in Desert Solitare] suggest an effort to establish an intimacy with the place, something more like a lover’s relationship than that of observer to observed.” We might say that all of the authors we have read use description, narrative, and ritual to establish intimacy with the natural world. Describe a moment when you felt intimacy with the natural world.
a few peaces (three, to be exact)
I
talking can terraform, can flatten some tangled
topography of the mind into
flat verdance - you can see what’s coming miles
away; nothing jumps out, nobody screams
and even at night the shadows stretch
under the moon but you can see the tips of them.
not always, though. it’s all about what you choose to do with your bulldozer
II
the edge of the shore, water running into
and up and over pebbles pulling them back and
forth with that interminable but gentle grasp
fireflies at the edges of the scene, at the edges of my fingers
fighting off cold
darkness
indefinition
all at once
giving form to everything while also being cowed by it
the stars are cold
hard
bright
enough of the sky that you almost feel like you can grab them
but you wouldn’t want to
even the utmost beauty - perhaps especially
seems perilous to touch out here
i stretch out on the rocks
a million peas with a mattress hidden underneath
instead of the other way around
the view of the sky from this angle is obstructed by the spidery fingers
of a birch tree leaning out over the beach
from the closest green spot to the fringe
the edge
the fire’s light is almost invisible
but i can see the smoke skirling around the tips of my toes
immensity is always humbling, the
question is, really, what your response to the humbling is
it’s your only choice
i choose to see meaning, to believe there’s meaning above and beyond me
whether this is true or not, it doesn’t matter it keeps me from getting too carried away with
controlling
i don’t understand why people want to be on top, to win
it signifies an end to something, a stoppage of learning
a narrowing of possibilities
even worse a lot of the time it also signifies or requires
destruction
fear
not knowing together is better than knowing alone
it keep some of us from going crazy (maybe)…
it gives a purpose to…um…some of us who aren’t satisfied
with repetition
and winning socially-accepted accolades
(most especially money, but other things)
as an end to the means of life
if you’re interested in everything you never have to worry about being bored
of course, it also takes a lot of work
which most people aren’t into, and i guess i never understood that idea
if you’re constantly into doing as little as possible, you shouldn’t be surprised if your life
turns out to be a little less full than you might have wanted
it seems like a very straightforward karmic kind of thing
but so many people seem surprised when it happens
i guess that’s partly why i always try to be busy with something
even just in my own head - there’s just no time not to be
that’s why it’s good to be stretched out on the beach
in the middle of nowhere
in a place where some essential, elemental meaning
communicates itself to you whether you’re looking for it or not
for one, you don’t have to sift through layers of abstraction
and expectation to find it
it’s just right there
III
the moon’s loud enough that it’s night
but not night enough to sleep
the riverbed, long since abandoned by anything that could have given it
that name
lies
dappling the moonlight into a thousand shades
rose, for love (?)
pearl, for age
silver, for time
blue, for the sky
which is still blue even when it’s too dark to tell
521 prompt #12, or "further on down the road"
Brace yourselves for my potentially generic question…
How has this class changed your conception of man’s relationship to nature?
In more than a few significant ways, but I’ll try to narrow it down a bit:
Since my first backpacking trip nine or so years ago, I have harbored what I know now could best be described as a Romantic appreciation for nature. I have loved being in nature, I have loved writing about nature, and I have loved musing on nature when my day-to-day life has kept me within this or that city. One thing this class has done for me, though, is to show me that this at-a-distance appreciation isn’t enough. To treat nature as something to be kept at a distance, cradled and held aloft, is not only limiting, but in our current state of environmental crisis it is also irresponsible. Nature is not just a rarely-visited, sectioned-off old-growth forest in the middle of a National Park: it is instead part of our lives even in the hearts of our largest cities. Even in a sea of concrete, nature is vitally present through its very absence, through our need to acknowledge our place in the cycle of life and death. To fail to acknowledge this, I’m starting to think, is to miss the point.
For their part, the Romantic poets and other writers we have studied in this class are no longer abstract ideas to me. I no longer prize, say, Emerson simply because he said a few nice things about trees. There are ideas worth taking from Emerson, and there are flaws in his ideas that need to be addressed; the same could be said of any of the other authors we’ve read this semester. Whereas I previously saw anyone who had famously written on nature or the environment as a bit of a kindred spirit, now I see such revered members of the nature-writing canon somewhat similarly to various religious denominations: each has some things to offer me that are of interest, but I’m unlikely to ever set foot in any of their churches and put money in their offering plate again.
One thing that I am certainly interested in continuing to explore is the borderline between our contemporary perception of the idea of “nature” or “wilderness” and the urban spaces we so desperately insist on differentiating from these ideas. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of exploration of this differentiation in the readings we have done; indeed, it seems this is an issue that is just recently becoming en vogue, perhaps due to writers such as Edward Abbey, who problematize the idea that somehow glass, concrete, and cars insulate us from the natural world. When we die, do we not still return to the earth?
the touch, the feel of ME KILLING THINGS...the fabric of our lives.
so i finally got home and started work last night on the rest of my semester-end stuff. justin and dad apparently set up justin's extra computer downstairs for me to work on, so i could get things done easier, which was awesome...not so awesome was the fact that after i was simply typing on word '03 for 2 hours, the entire computer crashed and now refuses to start.
so now i'm back on the trusty ol' 333mhz. god.
i thought the airport thing would be the end of the horror that has been the last three weeks or so, but apparently i still retain the ability to destroy everything i come in contact with. good thing i've been hands-off about the mystery girl situation...god knows she'd probably like get struck by lightning the second i tried to interact with her in a romantic way.
death-fingers, signing off.
so now i'm back on the trusty ol' 333mhz. god.
i thought the airport thing would be the end of the horror that has been the last three weeks or so, but apparently i still retain the ability to destroy everything i come in contact with. good thing i've been hands-off about the mystery girl situation...god knows she'd probably like get struck by lightning the second i tried to interact with her in a romantic way.
death-fingers, signing off.
i'm going to have hugh grant teeth if i'm not careful
the perils of airport-living: i just brushed my teeth for the first time in three days. that's not as gross as the part where i washed my hair with hand moisturizer, but it's still pretty gross.
Dec 20, 2008
updatey mcupdaterson
so 56 hours after leaving pullman, i finally flew into cincinnatti last night...and 5 hours after that got to my parents' house in canton, oh.
there's a lot of stuff to say about that or about other things...i've been bad about blogging. i told a friend of mine the other day that this has been the worst month of my life, and i still feel that that's accurate. but whatever. i'm picking up and moving on.
fender jr. isn't coming in until the end of vacation, so that's sort of on hold for the moment.
i have to finish a seminar paper (because my prof was awesome and gave me an extension when he found out i was stuck in the airport) and turn in grades by tuesday afternoon, but then i should have at least a little free time and not much else to do but sift my own brain.
i may end up talking to real life people if that seems more appropriate, but i also like talking on here and i've got a lot to talk about. i'll try to take lots of pictures, too. either way, expect posting to resume as per normal soon.
i also have to post my top album of the year (a big surprise for the second year in a row), catch up on posting mixtapes, and probably whine a little about my feelings or some shit.
anyway, i'm alive and (surprise!) working, but i'll be around.
happy holidays to everyone.
there's a lot of stuff to say about that or about other things...i've been bad about blogging. i told a friend of mine the other day that this has been the worst month of my life, and i still feel that that's accurate. but whatever. i'm picking up and moving on.
fender jr. isn't coming in until the end of vacation, so that's sort of on hold for the moment.
i have to finish a seminar paper (because my prof was awesome and gave me an extension when he found out i was stuck in the airport) and turn in grades by tuesday afternoon, but then i should have at least a little free time and not much else to do but sift my own brain.
i may end up talking to real life people if that seems more appropriate, but i also like talking on here and i've got a lot to talk about. i'll try to take lots of pictures, too. either way, expect posting to resume as per normal soon.
i also have to post my top album of the year (a big surprise for the second year in a row), catch up on posting mixtapes, and probably whine a little about my feelings or some shit.
anyway, i'm alive and (surprise!) working, but i'll be around.
happy holidays to everyone.
 |
| From winter 08 |
nobody will ever make anything this amazing. and if someone did, even if that someone was a god or magic aliens or something, i think i'd rather just not know. some things are better as a mystery.
Dec 16, 2008
awesome.
as i was shuffling my books about a moment ago, Nietzsche's "beyond good and evil" fell off the top shelf and landed on Martin Heidegger, Jr.
i found that cosmically hilarious.
i found that cosmically hilarious.
Dec 15, 2008
Dec 14, 2008
i'm feeding him bacon because he likes it, and that's okay
 |
| From winter 08 |
this is martin heidegger, jr. he lives on my desk.
god, i need to sleep.
maybe i will count martin heidegger jr. until i do.
1...1...1...1...zzzzzz...
priority fail
so all day my brain has kept going off on these weird tangents involving girls. one in particular, i suppose.
anyway, it's good to know that even in the midst of finals week and having 11dy thousand other things going on, i can find time to be nuts/wacko/whatever about things i have no control over.
yaaaaaaay...
i should just write an entire album about how lame i am.
oh wait, i already did that.
anyway, it's good to know that even in the midst of finals week and having 11dy thousand other things going on, i can find time to be nuts/wacko/whatever about things i have no control over.
yaaaaaaay...
i should just write an entire album about how lame i am.
oh wait, i already did that.
everybody was kung-fu writing
so i just finished my 510 paper with 2 hours left on the clock. i'm taking a break before i proof it.
sorry i haven't been blogging much lately; the shit sort of hit the wall after the computer thing happened...and i've basically been insane since. nothing to worry about, not like crazy-insane, just busy-insane.
i'm out of here in four days.
now THAT sort of makes me crazy-insane.
i'm cryptic by necessity...out of time. back to work.
sorry i haven't been blogging much lately; the shit sort of hit the wall after the computer thing happened...and i've basically been insane since. nothing to worry about, not like crazy-insane, just busy-insane.
i'm out of here in four days.
now THAT sort of makes me crazy-insane.
i'm cryptic by necessity...out of time. back to work.
Dec 10, 2008
Dec 9, 2008
we're doing it again
staying in avery all night, that is.
presentation #1 is ready to go; #s 2 and 3 are looking a bit more tenuous, but those aren't until later in the day anyway.
sadly, i still have to take my car home at some point "tonight"...i have about 2 hours until they start ticketing. shame it's so fucking cold out. that walk is a bit of a morale killer.
pizza's still holding out. if i don't die of a cholesterol-clogging-death-thing this week, i'm not sure if i'll ever die at all of anything.
LC pizza is greazy as all hell. i dirtied up pads' keyboard whilst eating and typing...sorry, yo. i cleaned it off all nice-like and now it's shiny and smells less like peoples' fingers.
presentation #1 is ready to go; #s 2 and 3 are looking a bit more tenuous, but those aren't until later in the day anyway.
sadly, i still have to take my car home at some point "tonight"...i have about 2 hours until they start ticketing. shame it's so fucking cold out. that walk is a bit of a morale killer.
pizza's still holding out. if i don't die of a cholesterol-clogging-death-thing this week, i'm not sure if i'll ever die at all of anything.
LC pizza is greazy as all hell. i dirtied up pads' keyboard whilst eating and typing...sorry, yo. i cleaned it off all nice-like and now it's shiny and smells less like peoples' fingers.
180...and your mom.
apparently i shot my full complement of rainbows out of my ass last night, because tonight i can't decide whether to hate everything a little bit, or hate a few specific things a whole fucking lot.
going to eat some food and watch 24 before going back to writing. i have about 6 hours before i have to have all three of my paper ideas resembling something not-stupid. i'm not even close. fuck. i'm tired of this shit.
going to eat some food and watch 24 before going back to writing. i have about 6 hours before i have to have all three of my paper ideas resembling something not-stupid. i'm not even close. fuck. i'm tired of this shit.
521 prompt #10
“The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster,” so says Carson (277). Would she have revised her sentiment, surviving into the 21st century? Why, or why not? Pose a potential revision to this comment, based on your perception of our own attitudes toward the environment—such a hypothetical exercise need not harbor a cheerful outlook necessarily.
Progress is by no means easy, and I think in this lies the greatest threat to environmentalism: I believe Carson’s statement is actually less dire than the situation warrants. We are taught that we have attained our current understanding of the world, or current standard of living, our current lifestyle by forging ahead heroically against the current of chaos, entropy, barbarism. In our cultural imagination, we have reached high civilization (the type of civilization that can consume natural resources at a rate that threatens its own existence) through struggle, through war, through sacrifice. We have attained ease through a history of difficulty.
I wonder if convincing people to backpedal on this progress has thus been rendered impossible. It is analogous to asking a victorious army to give quarter to its enemy without any gain to itself.
Even if the end of our road is disaster (for us, if not the planet itself), it is difficult to convince people of the necessity of change when they aren’t directly threatened. Telling people that they are risking their great-great-grandchildren’s health means little to nothing to most, if they can live comfortably now. Since Carson’s time, we have become, as a culture, much more aware of our effect on the environment – at the same time, our effect on the environment has become more and more dramatic and destructive. People put recycling bins out on the curb, but they also create more trash than they did in the 1960s.
What we would need to not reach Carson’s prophesied doomsday is not a slowing-down of our idea of Progress, but instead a reversal of it. I don’t mean something as dramatic as going back to living in caves and hunting with sticks, but something that would require a massive cultural acknowledgment of our need to reestablish our place as a functional, and not simply destructive part of the natural ecosystem. We seem so far removed from such a position in America in the 21st century, that, unlike Edward Abbey, I cannot even begin to make suggestions as to how we would remedy this situation. It seems that our obsession with Progress can, at this point, only be given up by pitting our need to control against the ecosystem that first spawned us and as a result being made to realize how small we really are in the larger scheme of things.
This is all wonderfully bleak and world-ending-y, but perhaps Carson’s statement could be best reworded as: “The road we have long traveled has blinded us to the reality that we are not in fact our own masters, and our obstinacy on this point can only end in disaster”.
Progress is by no means easy, and I think in this lies the greatest threat to environmentalism: I believe Carson’s statement is actually less dire than the situation warrants. We are taught that we have attained our current understanding of the world, or current standard of living, our current lifestyle by forging ahead heroically against the current of chaos, entropy, barbarism. In our cultural imagination, we have reached high civilization (the type of civilization that can consume natural resources at a rate that threatens its own existence) through struggle, through war, through sacrifice. We have attained ease through a history of difficulty.
I wonder if convincing people to backpedal on this progress has thus been rendered impossible. It is analogous to asking a victorious army to give quarter to its enemy without any gain to itself.
Even if the end of our road is disaster (for us, if not the planet itself), it is difficult to convince people of the necessity of change when they aren’t directly threatened. Telling people that they are risking their great-great-grandchildren’s health means little to nothing to most, if they can live comfortably now. Since Carson’s time, we have become, as a culture, much more aware of our effect on the environment – at the same time, our effect on the environment has become more and more dramatic and destructive. People put recycling bins out on the curb, but they also create more trash than they did in the 1960s.
What we would need to not reach Carson’s prophesied doomsday is not a slowing-down of our idea of Progress, but instead a reversal of it. I don’t mean something as dramatic as going back to living in caves and hunting with sticks, but something that would require a massive cultural acknowledgment of our need to reestablish our place as a functional, and not simply destructive part of the natural ecosystem. We seem so far removed from such a position in America in the 21st century, that, unlike Edward Abbey, I cannot even begin to make suggestions as to how we would remedy this situation. It seems that our obsession with Progress can, at this point, only be given up by pitting our need to control against the ecosystem that first spawned us and as a result being made to realize how small we really are in the larger scheme of things.
This is all wonderfully bleak and world-ending-y, but perhaps Carson’s statement could be best reworded as: “The road we have long traveled has blinded us to the reality that we are not in fact our own masters, and our obstinacy on this point can only end in disaster”.
521 prompt #9
In your own words, what is Thoreau's view on man's relationship with nature? Can we see this philosophy in any of the Romantic poetry we've read in the class so far?
I’m perhaps a bit hung up on this, but I still find Julie’s visual model from her presentation on Muir most useful in illustrating a way to contextualize (and therefore, for me, to understand) Thoreau. In the presented triangular representation, Thoreau was located in the corner designated “Logos”, related to anthropocentrism, nature-as-observable object.
I hesitated a bit at first at this categorization: at first blush, Thoreau’s “Walking” had struck me as a manifesto that advocated nature-as-escapism. But in reality, this was more my own idea of The Walk intruding on what Thoreau was trying to say. His Walking is a response to civilization, to mad progress, to reckless industrialization, but it is a response that is still grounded in the same foundation of these more civilized pursuits.
What I mean to say is that Thoreau’s walk is indeed a walk of science; if it separates man from modern civilization, it is only geographically, not ideologically.
To me, it seems as if Thoreau sees nature as an eternally present, easily accessible balm for anyone who grows tired of civilization’s banal pursuits and needs a day away. Not unlike a Thomas Kinkade painting hung in a suburbanite’s living room, nature is a hobby, a distraction, a way to keep life from becoming one-dimensional. It is not, as we see in later nature writings, a resource to be appreciated, maintained, protected.
In this way Thoreau’s vision of nature is very similar to the Romantic view of nature in the sense that for him it is idealized; something to be admired, something to draw inspiration from. But not something that has a direct, real-world bearing on day-to-day life.
Though I would agree that some of Thoreau’s sentiments regarding nature are insightful and that some look especially nice on the back of a postcard with trees on the front, but his perspective on nature is more a privileged, removed perspective, and not the type of applied perspective that acknowledges nature and civilization as parts of a greater whole. This second type of perspective seems far more functional and useful in our own time.
I’m perhaps a bit hung up on this, but I still find Julie’s visual model from her presentation on Muir most useful in illustrating a way to contextualize (and therefore, for me, to understand) Thoreau. In the presented triangular representation, Thoreau was located in the corner designated “Logos”, related to anthropocentrism, nature-as-observable object.
I hesitated a bit at first at this categorization: at first blush, Thoreau’s “Walking” had struck me as a manifesto that advocated nature-as-escapism. But in reality, this was more my own idea of The Walk intruding on what Thoreau was trying to say. His Walking is a response to civilization, to mad progress, to reckless industrialization, but it is a response that is still grounded in the same foundation of these more civilized pursuits.
What I mean to say is that Thoreau’s walk is indeed a walk of science; if it separates man from modern civilization, it is only geographically, not ideologically.
To me, it seems as if Thoreau sees nature as an eternally present, easily accessible balm for anyone who grows tired of civilization’s banal pursuits and needs a day away. Not unlike a Thomas Kinkade painting hung in a suburbanite’s living room, nature is a hobby, a distraction, a way to keep life from becoming one-dimensional. It is not, as we see in later nature writings, a resource to be appreciated, maintained, protected.
In this way Thoreau’s vision of nature is very similar to the Romantic view of nature in the sense that for him it is idealized; something to be admired, something to draw inspiration from. But not something that has a direct, real-world bearing on day-to-day life.
Though I would agree that some of Thoreau’s sentiments regarding nature are insightful and that some look especially nice on the back of a postcard with trees on the front, but his perspective on nature is more a privileged, removed perspective, and not the type of applied perspective that acknowledges nature and civilization as parts of a greater whole. This second type of perspective seems far more functional and useful in our own time.
Dec 8, 2008
i think love and sharing are synonyms. or they should be.
the times i feel like i would not suck at being a boyfriend (fleeting though they are, and though i'm not really a boy anymore, well at least not usually) are the times when i feel like i'm a supernova about to explode star guts all over the place.
and i don't mean like angst, or frustration or whatever, i mean all that energy that sits between a tenative grin and the moment words stop being good enough, the infinite distance between those two things...sometimes all that gets so heavy i can't sleep or see straight and it's hard to explain to people without them thinking you're:
a) crazy
b) sad
like the only extremity of feeling most of us allow ourselves is badness. fuck that.
there's something in the air at the moment, some weird chiming in the back of my head harmonizing with that galactic Bb and it's making it really hard to focus on anything (work).
whoa.
for some reason this post made me want to read the waste land.
the times i feel like i would not suck at being a boyfriend (fleeting though they are, and though i'm not really a boy anymore, well at least not usually) are the times when i feel like i'm a supernova about to explode star guts all over the place.
and i don't mean like angst, or frustration or whatever, i mean all that energy that sits between a tenative grin and the moment words stop being good enough, the infinite distance between those two things...sometimes all that gets so heavy i can't sleep or see straight and it's hard to explain to people without them thinking you're:
a) crazy
b) sad
like the only extremity of feeling most of us allow ourselves is badness. fuck that.
there's something in the air at the moment, some weird chiming in the back of my head harmonizing with that galactic Bb and it's making it really hard to focus on anything (work).
whoa.
for some reason this post made me want to read the waste land.
je suis le retourne!
le maz (the car) is back at stepford (the apartment) and i had a nice little stroll up c street at 5am. pullman's great this time of night. unlike kent or canton or, god forbid, akron, pullman is small enough that at 5am it's dead. dead, dead. dead, like "i didn't see a single person on my 15 walk and heard one car" dead. i dig it.
abbey says he chose the desert as his wilderness because it affords more opportunities for solitude. more opportunities to force you to get to know yourself and your surroundings. i feel the same way about nighttime. i've always been a fan of wandering at night. first it was a function of my insomnia. it wore me out when i couldn't sleep, and doubled as a way to put me into a sort of weird, open, empty space that allowed me to think all my thoughts out. but last year, when i was probably more alone that i've ever been in my life, i spent a lot of time walking. there were nights when i would know for sure that i didn't need to be up in the morning for anything that i would plan walks, walks i knew would take me four or five hours to finish, and then from midnight to 5am i would walk. walking at night became my way of having the world to myself, to be able to experience necessary solitude without having to lock myself up in my room, or my apartment. during the day, everything is mediated through people. even if you're trying to avoid people, you're still interacting with them by virtue of wanting to avoid them. at 5am you can disengage entirely and just take on the city without having to worry about society. it's interesting. i dig.
that said, it's also cold, and dark, and lonely. i can usually convince myself that relationships are too much work, that i don't have time for dating, that i'd be a bad boyfriend, that i'm happy just the way i am. usually i can make myself believe that. sometimes, maybe, it actually is true. but right now a hug would be nice. or one of those looks that's like a wink because you're the only two who are in on the joke and you both know it. oh man. if you think frying a laptop is a shock to the system, try falling in love. yowzers.
double-knotting my shoe laces, just in case.
abbey says he chose the desert as his wilderness because it affords more opportunities for solitude. more opportunities to force you to get to know yourself and your surroundings. i feel the same way about nighttime. i've always been a fan of wandering at night. first it was a function of my insomnia. it wore me out when i couldn't sleep, and doubled as a way to put me into a sort of weird, open, empty space that allowed me to think all my thoughts out. but last year, when i was probably more alone that i've ever been in my life, i spent a lot of time walking. there were nights when i would know for sure that i didn't need to be up in the morning for anything that i would plan walks, walks i knew would take me four or five hours to finish, and then from midnight to 5am i would walk. walking at night became my way of having the world to myself, to be able to experience necessary solitude without having to lock myself up in my room, or my apartment. during the day, everything is mediated through people. even if you're trying to avoid people, you're still interacting with them by virtue of wanting to avoid them. at 5am you can disengage entirely and just take on the city without having to worry about society. it's interesting. i dig.
that said, it's also cold, and dark, and lonely. i can usually convince myself that relationships are too much work, that i don't have time for dating, that i'd be a bad boyfriend, that i'm happy just the way i am. usually i can make myself believe that. sometimes, maybe, it actually is true. but right now a hug would be nice. or one of those looks that's like a wink because you're the only two who are in on the joke and you both know it. oh man. if you think frying a laptop is a shock to the system, try falling in love. yowzers.
double-knotting my shoe laces, just in case.
dark math
so, i got up at like 10am today. which means that by the time the sun comes back up my day will have consisted of 4 hours of sunlight and 16 hours of darkness. bring on that winter solstice.
good thing i'm a vampire 'n all.
good thing i'm a vampire 'n all.
the outside world/pizza/the chaingang/lizzy on the barrio/don't forget to tip your waitress
she works hard for the money.
srsly.
i gots some of that lil' caesars tonight...lots of pizza for 6 bucks. ready-made, microwaves pretty well...i probably would have fallen asleep ages ago without it.
noticed that RA fried his laptop today and apparently lost shitloads of recorded demos and movies and whatnot. ha. not that that's funny, but universal parallel-ness-ity is amusing.
how the FUCK do you record demos and shit and be an artist as fucking intense as that guy and not, like, burn your 189 millionish demos onto fucking CDs or something? that's insane. whenever i write ANYTHING, it immediately goes to hard copy. well, song-wise, at least. the fact that i'm here all night tonight retyping shit i wrote last week and the week before sort of makes my point pointless. yes? no. moving on.
had some donuts with em and co. this morning...wasn't too jacked about waking up early after staying here till half past a monkey's ass last night, but i wanted to see 'em because they haven't been around lately (or it's probably more appropriate to say i haven't been around lately and thusly have missed them when they were around). it was cool. great way to start the day.
i'm trying to appreciate these sorts of things more instead of just being afraid of feeling good about anything that's actually good. a much better way to go through life. it's not so hard to get used to the idea of love once you start kicking it around. the dark parts just start to seem petty and spiteful, and they go away easier now, almost as easy as they did when you were three and someone put a popsicle in your mouth. or a bomb pop. oh fuck, don't get me started.
anyway, so i blew up my laptop, for instance. and that obviously sucks, and is obviously sort of making my present life a living hell. but so what? it cost like 1000ism bucks to replace, which blows ass and which i don't have and had to pay on credit, but i'll find a way to pay it off eventually, and i pretty much have anything else i need at any given time, and i've had experiences even in the last 2 weeks, just tiny little inflections and expressions and moments that i wouldn't trade for 1000 bucks, so what's the point in getting all tied up about it? stupid, stupid. moving on.
eating some pizza. going to drive home and drop off my car. S almost got a parking ticket the other day because we thought we could beat the metermaid...don't want to take my chances, even though they don't start ticketing until 9 and i'll be gone (hopefully) and zzzzzzing by 10. so i'm taking her home and walking back at 5am. is beautiful and quiet, and the clouds are orange in that weird pullman way that means they can't decide whether to storm or just be the wrong color all night. when i get back i plan to watch a bit of 24 on pads' laptop and then probably by then it'll be sunrise and i can hammer out some paper outlines and teach my class and get a little sleep before coming back and doing it again. yay. 10 more days...i can never decide if that's a blessing or a curse.
then i'll be in the air and back to ohio. i love going home, but the longer i'm here, the harder and harder it gets to leave. i suppose there are worse things than loving too much.
srsly.
i gots some of that lil' caesars tonight...lots of pizza for 6 bucks. ready-made, microwaves pretty well...i probably would have fallen asleep ages ago without it.
noticed that RA fried his laptop today and apparently lost shitloads of recorded demos and movies and whatnot. ha. not that that's funny, but universal parallel-ness-ity is amusing.
how the FUCK do you record demos and shit and be an artist as fucking intense as that guy and not, like, burn your 189 millionish demos onto fucking CDs or something? that's insane. whenever i write ANYTHING, it immediately goes to hard copy. well, song-wise, at least. the fact that i'm here all night tonight retyping shit i wrote last week and the week before sort of makes my point pointless. yes? no. moving on.
had some donuts with em and co. this morning...wasn't too jacked about waking up early after staying here till half past a monkey's ass last night, but i wanted to see 'em because they haven't been around lately (or it's probably more appropriate to say i haven't been around lately and thusly have missed them when they were around). it was cool. great way to start the day.
i'm trying to appreciate these sorts of things more instead of just being afraid of feeling good about anything that's actually good. a much better way to go through life. it's not so hard to get used to the idea of love once you start kicking it around. the dark parts just start to seem petty and spiteful, and they go away easier now, almost as easy as they did when you were three and someone put a popsicle in your mouth. or a bomb pop. oh fuck, don't get me started.
anyway, so i blew up my laptop, for instance. and that obviously sucks, and is obviously sort of making my present life a living hell. but so what? it cost like 1000ism bucks to replace, which blows ass and which i don't have and had to pay on credit, but i'll find a way to pay it off eventually, and i pretty much have anything else i need at any given time, and i've had experiences even in the last 2 weeks, just tiny little inflections and expressions and moments that i wouldn't trade for 1000 bucks, so what's the point in getting all tied up about it? stupid, stupid. moving on.
eating some pizza. going to drive home and drop off my car. S almost got a parking ticket the other day because we thought we could beat the metermaid...don't want to take my chances, even though they don't start ticketing until 9 and i'll be gone (hopefully) and zzzzzzing by 10. so i'm taking her home and walking back at 5am. is beautiful and quiet, and the clouds are orange in that weird pullman way that means they can't decide whether to storm or just be the wrong color all night. when i get back i plan to watch a bit of 24 on pads' laptop and then probably by then it'll be sunrise and i can hammer out some paper outlines and teach my class and get a little sleep before coming back and doing it again. yay. 10 more days...i can never decide if that's a blessing or a curse.
then i'll be in the air and back to ohio. i love going home, but the longer i'm here, the harder and harder it gets to leave. i suppose there are worse things than loving too much.
ether
well, everyone else finally went to bed, it seems. nobody left to pester on the intarwebs. shame.
i'm in for the duration; finished up a bunch of extraneous stuff already, including my presentation outline and such for 521 for tuesday morning; unfortunately, i still only have the barest of ideas concerning what the fuck i'm going to do for either of my other papers, which i also have to present on on tuesday.
right now, i'm just nailing down whatever i can in terms of extraneous work; i'm sofa king tired that i'm pretty sure i'm incapable of the higher level thought it'll take to construct argumentation outlines.
fortunately, there's a lot of extraneous bullshit to take care of before i can seriously start to focus on these papers anyway. so that's what i'm going to do.
at some point tonight, i have to take my car home so i don't get ticketed in the morning. otherwise, i'll be here all night. if you want to hang, just catapult on over.
i'm in for the duration; finished up a bunch of extraneous stuff already, including my presentation outline and such for 521 for tuesday morning; unfortunately, i still only have the barest of ideas concerning what the fuck i'm going to do for either of my other papers, which i also have to present on on tuesday.
right now, i'm just nailing down whatever i can in terms of extraneous work; i'm sofa king tired that i'm pretty sure i'm incapable of the higher level thought it'll take to construct argumentation outlines.
fortunately, there's a lot of extraneous bullshit to take care of before i can seriously start to focus on these papers anyway. so that's what i'm going to do.
at some point tonight, i have to take my car home so i don't get ticketed in the morning. otherwise, i'll be here all night. if you want to hang, just catapult on over.
Dec 6, 2008
tortoise < hare
i was chugging away on these papers pretty awesomely, 'cept now i just now ate a CBRB and now my metabolism's all like "WTF, mate?", and all my blood's flowing to my stomach and shit.
and it's 4zm in the morning and i've still got 10 papers to go. sheeit.
i'm gonna have to sleep through donuts again. and you know what kind of mood that puts me in.
every record i make from now on is going to have at least one song that ends in an extended feedback/noise jam with a beautiful woman saying cryptic-ass shit in french over top of the guitars.
after recording, i may or may not take this french woman to a ball.
every pretty girl deserves to go to a ball.
ha.
and it's 4zm in the morning and i've still got 10 papers to go. sheeit.
i'm gonna have to sleep through donuts again. and you know what kind of mood that puts me in.
every record i make from now on is going to have at least one song that ends in an extended feedback/noise jam with a beautiful woman saying cryptic-ass shit in french over top of the guitars.
after recording, i may or may not take this french woman to a ball.
every pretty girl deserves to go to a ball.
ha.
uh...
why do humanities exams always smell like boo berry cereal when i grade them?
seriously.
okay, you're lucky this computer doesn't have a webcam. my hair has been wacky all day, and it just turned into a fucking pinata or some shit. it's totally unsane.
that is to say, if you were to smash my head, candy would probably come out. cherry-flavored three musketeers. shit yeah.
more later.
seriously.
okay, you're lucky this computer doesn't have a webcam. my hair has been wacky all day, and it just turned into a fucking pinata or some shit. it's totally unsane.
that is to say, if you were to smash my head, candy would probably come out. cherry-flavored three musketeers. shit yeah.
more later.
Dec 5, 2008
i done did it.
just ordered Fender v2.0. should be in by december 18th or thereabouts. cost 1100 credit-dollars.
jesus. fuck.
jesus. fuck.
RIP Fender
as if the next 2 weeks isn't going to be absolutely ridiculous and possibly-failing-out-of-grad-school enough, last night Fender tried to drink some soda and thusly is no longer functioning.
so. not only is there no laptop anymore, quite possibly everything on said laptop (all my work from this semester) is now gone.
i spent all yesterday trying to fix it when i really, REALLY needed to write this presentation that's coming up on tuesday. then i spent all night trying to figure out how the fuck to still get everything done, and afford a replacement/repairs (humongous credit card debt, ftw!). then i spent all late evening and early morning alternating between watching episodes of "24" and having a massive panic attack. then i cancelled my class and stayed home sick. because by then i was completely insane and definitely incapable of interacting with humanity.
things are a bit more under control at the moment, though i occasionally try to break down the list of things i have left to do into discrete chunks and then breathing gets weird and scary.
unfortunately, i don't really have the time/luxury of...those kinds of things. i'm just going to have to keep plugging away and hope i don't completely losing.
though, going insane might be reasonable grounds for requesting INCs from my seminars...
jesus fucking christ.
on the upside, despite having to go into horrible debt, i'm probably getting a new laptop, and fucking soon. i definitely need one for next semester, and it looks like HP could get me a custom one for a decent price by dec. 20th or so.
i hate suddenly dropping so much money that i don't have, especially since i just put 500 bucks worth of car repairs on my credit card, and have another (at least) 500 coming up when i get the timing belt replaced (before march). but my laptop is fucking fried, and i don't really know what else to do. my warranty ran out in october, and everyone i talk to says getting repairs done would be incredibly time-intensive, involve at least a few hundred dollars, and even after all that might not result in the laptop actually being "repaired".
so i'm going to try to salvage the data on the hard drive and just buy a new one over xmas break.
my primary, immediate problem of not having a way to work in my office on stuff (which is where all my hundreds of pages of books and notes and such are) has been temporarily solved thanks to paddington (who handled a late-night freak-out call from me quite gracefully) letting me borrow her backup laptop. now i just have to get my head back on straight and get to work.
so. not only is there no laptop anymore, quite possibly everything on said laptop (all my work from this semester) is now gone.
i spent all yesterday trying to fix it when i really, REALLY needed to write this presentation that's coming up on tuesday. then i spent all night trying to figure out how the fuck to still get everything done, and afford a replacement/repairs (humongous credit card debt, ftw!). then i spent all late evening and early morning alternating between watching episodes of "24" and having a massive panic attack. then i cancelled my class and stayed home sick. because by then i was completely insane and definitely incapable of interacting with humanity.
things are a bit more under control at the moment, though i occasionally try to break down the list of things i have left to do into discrete chunks and then breathing gets weird and scary.
unfortunately, i don't really have the time/luxury of...those kinds of things. i'm just going to have to keep plugging away and hope i don't completely losing.
though, going insane might be reasonable grounds for requesting INCs from my seminars...
jesus fucking christ.
on the upside, despite having to go into horrible debt, i'm probably getting a new laptop, and fucking soon. i definitely need one for next semester, and it looks like HP could get me a custom one for a decent price by dec. 20th or so.
i hate suddenly dropping so much money that i don't have, especially since i just put 500 bucks worth of car repairs on my credit card, and have another (at least) 500 coming up when i get the timing belt replaced (before march). but my laptop is fucking fried, and i don't really know what else to do. my warranty ran out in october, and everyone i talk to says getting repairs done would be incredibly time-intensive, involve at least a few hundred dollars, and even after all that might not result in the laptop actually being "repaired".
so i'm going to try to salvage the data on the hard drive and just buy a new one over xmas break.
my primary, immediate problem of not having a way to work in my office on stuff (which is where all my hundreds of pages of books and notes and such are) has been temporarily solved thanks to paddington (who handled a late-night freak-out call from me quite gracefully) letting me borrow her backup laptop. now i just have to get my head back on straight and get to work.
Dec 4, 2008
alors!
sweet lord in agnostic heaven, these croissants are amazering...zoe's is all up on my best-food time list now. warm, buttery, and god i just wish it lasted forever.
n. o. m.
n. o. m.
Dec 3, 2008
hanging out at the SB, drinking some lemongrass and ginger tea and enjoying some books that i should probably be reading faster considering i HAVE to start writing tomorrow. trying not to think too much about mystery girl...mostly succeeding. it's winter finally, sort of. some pictures going up next time i take a break. maybe tomorrow. if i end up staying up all night working, at least it's a beautiful night for it...
old enough version 32,412/version "awesome"
yeah ricky skaggs' mandolin!
yeah ashley monroe's face!
yeah ashley monroe's voice also!
yeah, i know jack white could probably cockpunch me and i'd start cheering!
yeah ashley monroe's face!
yeah ashley monroe's voice also!
yeah, i know jack white could probably cockpunch me and i'd start cheering!
Dec 2, 2008
the best thing i gleaned from 8 hours of class today...
...is this:
fake steven colbert's personality get pwnd!
this is why i love cultural studies. because it doesn't have to be 200 years old to be important.
fake steven colbert's personality get pwnd!
this is why i love cultural studies. because it doesn't have to be 200 years old to be important.
Nov 28, 2008
insomnia, insanity, sickness, and girls
that seems like a fitting title to my autobiography. i think that the subtitle then would just be a comic book sound effect like "ziff!" or "bing!"
well, that would actually be the emo version of my autobio. the happy version would be like "here's your dream job and a cultural heritage that gives you every possible advantage over the vast majority of people living on earth: playing video games all day is fun: the ben bunting II, esq. story: why did you buy this: no, really, i'm seriously asking: part trois".
that's a lot of colons, but if there's one grammatically correct way to represent how my thought process works, it's colons.
i finally woke up today feeling not-like-death for the first time in recent memory; i can move my head from side-to-side without pain, i can swallow without pain, i can even take medicine and not register any decrease in the amount of pain i'm currently feeling (which i think means i'm not feeling any pain). so after my six-day rendezvous with learning what it feels like to be really old, i fell asleep at 1030 last night and then woke up promptly at 420am. then i spent like four hours reading pointless shit on the internet because there really wasn't anything else to do. i meant to watch TV on hulu until i fell back to sleep, but somehow reading the entire DC superman mythos on wikipedia turned out to be far more interesting, and by the time i cross-linked my way all the way over to the hubble space telescope it was 8am and i was cracking open my morning chocolate cereal and diet coke combo.
i think the plan is to replace the mazda entire car-limbic system...or something. i was planning on replacing the timing belt and the clutch, but upon removal of the rotors yesterday, cracks were found (passive voice R0X0RZ) and thusly the rotors will probably be replaced as well, so as to avoid 70mph incidents involving me hitting my brakes and my car responding by destroying my front tires and/or splitting in half down the middle and/or shooting fire from the front wheel wells while i continue to travel 70mph. the good news is that my suspicion regarding that weird, ghetto-ass rattling the car has been making for months were confirmed in the form of a loose coat-hangery, lame-ass fastener that was supposed to be holding my exhaust system in place, but was doing a shitty job of that while doing an awesome job at making a shitload of noise. curt assure me this is easily fixable by welding.
i'm convinced on some level that spending the necessary many-hundreds-of-dollars ("spending" here is a euphemism for "putting it on credit") on these repairs will somehow make my car into this insanely fancy super-car that'll be able to all fly and shoot missles and shit. boy am i going to be disappointed when i'm way the fuck in the hole again and all i have to show for it is a car that's marginally functional as opposed to borderline broken.
still thinking about that one unnamed secret girl again. starting to think that i'm just never going to be able to manifest my positive relationship intentions towards anyone in a way that's not just totally fucked up and weird and potentially creepy and/or crazy. i'd say more, but i don't really feel like it at the moment; more fun to just beat myself up about it.
god, i'm going crazy with the slashified conjunctions today.
well, that would actually be the emo version of my autobio. the happy version would be like "here's your dream job and a cultural heritage that gives you every possible advantage over the vast majority of people living on earth: playing video games all day is fun: the ben bunting II, esq. story: why did you buy this: no, really, i'm seriously asking: part trois".
that's a lot of colons, but if there's one grammatically correct way to represent how my thought process works, it's colons.
i finally woke up today feeling not-like-death for the first time in recent memory; i can move my head from side-to-side without pain, i can swallow without pain, i can even take medicine and not register any decrease in the amount of pain i'm currently feeling (which i think means i'm not feeling any pain). so after my six-day rendezvous with learning what it feels like to be really old, i fell asleep at 1030 last night and then woke up promptly at 420am. then i spent like four hours reading pointless shit on the internet because there really wasn't anything else to do. i meant to watch TV on hulu until i fell back to sleep, but somehow reading the entire DC superman mythos on wikipedia turned out to be far more interesting, and by the time i cross-linked my way all the way over to the hubble space telescope it was 8am and i was cracking open my morning chocolate cereal and diet coke combo.
i think the plan is to replace the mazda entire car-limbic system...or something. i was planning on replacing the timing belt and the clutch, but upon removal of the rotors yesterday, cracks were found (passive voice R0X0RZ) and thusly the rotors will probably be replaced as well, so as to avoid 70mph incidents involving me hitting my brakes and my car responding by destroying my front tires and/or splitting in half down the middle and/or shooting fire from the front wheel wells while i continue to travel 70mph. the good news is that my suspicion regarding that weird, ghetto-ass rattling the car has been making for months were confirmed in the form of a loose coat-hangery, lame-ass fastener that was supposed to be holding my exhaust system in place, but was doing a shitty job of that while doing an awesome job at making a shitload of noise. curt assure me this is easily fixable by welding.
i'm convinced on some level that spending the necessary many-hundreds-of-dollars ("spending" here is a euphemism for "putting it on credit") on these repairs will somehow make my car into this insanely fancy super-car that'll be able to all fly and shoot missles and shit. boy am i going to be disappointed when i'm way the fuck in the hole again and all i have to show for it is a car that's marginally functional as opposed to borderline broken.
still thinking about that one unnamed secret girl again. starting to think that i'm just never going to be able to manifest my positive relationship intentions towards anyone in a way that's not just totally fucked up and weird and potentially creepy and/or crazy. i'd say more, but i don't really feel like it at the moment; more fun to just beat myself up about it.
god, i'm going crazy with the slashified conjunctions today.
Nov 27, 2008
six days later, vacation finally starts
after six days of simultaneously working and on/off being sick, i'm in seattle...just hanging out and getting ready for some car surgery.
good times. more later.
good times. more later.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY FENDER!
the blogfest has been raging for 13 months here on blogger. i'm much happier and much less emo than i was over there on ol' livejournal.
all in all, i've been blogging for...almost four years now. bizarre.
the interwebs!
all in all, i've been blogging for...almost four years now. bizarre.
the interwebs!
Nov 26, 2008
the record-breaker gets broken.
sad, evil days in fake san francisco.
partway through a back-and-forth game against rival seattle, bunting was sacked hard and was taken off the field with a broken tailbone. needless to say, he's done for the season, which sucks because he was putting up numbers that were easily better that his previous six seasons (highlighted by the fact that he got voted into the pro bowl before getting injured, four weeks before the season actually ended).
the team pretty much fell apart after that, and backup QB jordan was decimated by the seattle defense. the niners went on to lose 35-28. bowes was also kept to 50 yards on the ground in the snowstorm.
the now 12-2 niners next faced the buccaneers, a team that not too long ago elimated them from the conference finals. this time, despite 2 fumbles, 2 interceptions, a missed field goal, and giving up a defensive touchdown, the niners just could not suck enough to lose to the buccanneers. early on, both teams had a few ludicrously obvious chances to score that somehow went awry, and then finally late in the first quarter, michael faulk, the bucs' QB, fumbled and it was run back by the 9000 pound lineman harold minter for a touchdown.
on the very next play, faulk threw an interception (one of many), but the niners weren't able to turn it into any points as stewart (who recently made 4 50+ yard field goals) missed a 29 yarder.
up 17-0 early in the second half, the niners made what was surprisingly their biggest mistake of the game: knocking out faulk and forcing the bucs to put in their second-string QB. he turned out to be approximately 19 times better than faulk, and got the bucs to within 3 points, 20-17, before the niners found the end zone again.
the bucs would score one more time with the clock running out, but would fail to recover the onside kick. the somewhat battered niners (11 injuries in the last two games, with 6 of them coming among the secondary) went on to win 27-24.
partway through a back-and-forth game against rival seattle, bunting was sacked hard and was taken off the field with a broken tailbone. needless to say, he's done for the season, which sucks because he was putting up numbers that were easily better that his previous six seasons (highlighted by the fact that he got voted into the pro bowl before getting injured, four weeks before the season actually ended).
the team pretty much fell apart after that, and backup QB jordan was decimated by the seattle defense. the niners went on to lose 35-28. bowes was also kept to 50 yards on the ground in the snowstorm.
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| From Other and Posts |
the now 12-2 niners next faced the buccaneers, a team that not too long ago elimated them from the conference finals. this time, despite 2 fumbles, 2 interceptions, a missed field goal, and giving up a defensive touchdown, the niners just could not suck enough to lose to the buccanneers. early on, both teams had a few ludicrously obvious chances to score that somehow went awry, and then finally late in the first quarter, michael faulk, the bucs' QB, fumbled and it was run back by the 9000 pound lineman harold minter for a touchdown.
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| From Other and Posts |
on the very next play, faulk threw an interception (one of many), but the niners weren't able to turn it into any points as stewart (who recently made 4 50+ yard field goals) missed a 29 yarder.
 |
| From Other and Posts |
up 17-0 early in the second half, the niners made what was surprisingly their biggest mistake of the game: knocking out faulk and forcing the bucs to put in their second-string QB. he turned out to be approximately 19 times better than faulk, and got the bucs to within 3 points, 20-17, before the niners found the end zone again.
the bucs would score one more time with the clock running out, but would fail to recover the onside kick. the somewhat battered niners (11 injuries in the last two games, with 6 of them coming among the secondary) went on to win 27-24.
Nov 24, 2008
sudaFED
WELCOME TO WARP ZONE!
no WONDER they only sell this shit over the counter nowadays.
who needs meth?
no WONDER they only sell this shit over the counter nowadays.
who needs meth?
what i learned in school (on the first day of winter 2008)
1. space is cold. the air is not breathy there. i would not like to be in space without a metalfoil robot face-hat. even though the earth is damn pretty up thar.
2. when you freeze yourself out of your car without a coat, the next morning you wake up sick as fuck. then you want your eyes to liquefy for no reason other than if they do, the metal rats chewing their way around behind them will fall out onto the floor and you can stomp on them. well, you could if you could see them. but you can't cuz your eyes just fucking liquefied. damn.
3. pizza cures most things, but not all things.
4. taco bell cures some of the things that pizza cures, and some other things, but still not all things.
5. psuedophedrine doesn't cure anything, but damn does it make you feel like it does.
6. writing songs is hard when you're trying to do schoolwork. this makes me sad. i can't wait to sing over xmas. hopefully a lot.
7. between now and march, i should wear pretty all my clothes pretty much everywhere.
8. shower water hurts hitting your skin when you're sick.
9. i think sadly that tomorrow might be a wash. someone find me a hotel to stay in in SF in march. and read a bunch of theory and take good notes.
10. i probably should practice hugging more. it's not fair to expect from other people what you're too much of a crazy to give to them first.
11. eleven is a bad number to end on.
12. one more down. sudafed, that is.
13. much better. i have learned my lesson re: entering into relationships based on neediness, and now i at least like to think i know better. that said, being sick and tired and quiet and lonely and so done with fucking thinking about theory for a few hours makes me wish i had a relationship-type excuse to get like a high-five and maybe a chance to see someone smile at me in that way that blows your socks off even when you just want to blow someone's head off. then suddenly everything's cool for a bit...at the mere expense of...what is it, like 32 face muscles or something? sheesh.
i have a particular girl in mind at the moment, but it doesn't matter because even though she's totally badass i'm 112 percent sure that if she knew who she was (or something, you know what i mean) she would probably kick my ass...not in a mean way but just because i'm pretty sure her being that girl for me wouldn't work out for her because from her viewpoint i bet we don't fit together in that particular way...not because of anything negative or dislike-ful, but just because sometimes people don't see other people in the way person 2 might want them to see them in...uhhh...what?
at least i know what i meant.
anyway, the mere thought of her kicking my ass for writing about her kicking my ass had amused me to the point of...umm...LOL'ing, as the kids say. even if it was followed by extreme rib-area pain and a fit of coughing.
it's wild that we choose to give other people so much power over our feelings and then get our feelings hurt when they don't use that power the way we want them to. what the fuck is that?
anyway, i'm cool with no mystery-girl, i suppose. nothing like an enormous amount of pizza, flu medicine, guitars, 13 cardinals shows on my hard drive, a week of thanksgiving break, and an actual bed (which will someday experience being slept in) to negate most of the no-hugging-ness.
i've said too much. this is a loooooooong 13.
13b.eleven. none of this should be construed as "bitching". i am pretty fucking content, and continue to be, as is a pretty easy thing to be for someone who doesn't expect or want to be rewarded for his misguided and potentially destructive attempts to enlighten and en-happy other people's lives. hope i'm doing my job. take it easy out there.
2. when you freeze yourself out of your car without a coat, the next morning you wake up sick as fuck. then you want your eyes to liquefy for no reason other than if they do, the metal rats chewing their way around behind them will fall out onto the floor and you can stomp on them. well, you could if you could see them. but you can't cuz your eyes just fucking liquefied. damn.
3. pizza cures most things, but not all things.
4. taco bell cures some of the things that pizza cures, and some other things, but still not all things.
5. psuedophedrine doesn't cure anything, but damn does it make you feel like it does.
6. writing songs is hard when you're trying to do schoolwork. this makes me sad. i can't wait to sing over xmas. hopefully a lot.
7. between now and march, i should wear pretty all my clothes pretty much everywhere.
8. shower water hurts hitting your skin when you're sick.
9. i think sadly that tomorrow might be a wash. someone find me a hotel to stay in in SF in march. and read a bunch of theory and take good notes.
10. i probably should practice hugging more. it's not fair to expect from other people what you're too much of a crazy to give to them first.
11. eleven is a bad number to end on.
12. one more down. sudafed, that is.
13. much better. i have learned my lesson re: entering into relationships based on neediness, and now i at least like to think i know better. that said, being sick and tired and quiet and lonely and so done with fucking thinking about theory for a few hours makes me wish i had a relationship-type excuse to get like a high-five and maybe a chance to see someone smile at me in that way that blows your socks off even when you just want to blow someone's head off. then suddenly everything's cool for a bit...at the mere expense of...what is it, like 32 face muscles or something? sheesh.
i have a particular girl in mind at the moment, but it doesn't matter because even though she's totally badass i'm 112 percent sure that if she knew who she was (or something, you know what i mean) she would probably kick my ass...not in a mean way but just because i'm pretty sure her being that girl for me wouldn't work out for her because from her viewpoint i bet we don't fit together in that particular way...not because of anything negative or dislike-ful, but just because sometimes people don't see other people in the way person 2 might want them to see them in...uhhh...what?
at least i know what i meant.
anyway, the mere thought of her kicking my ass for writing about her kicking my ass had amused me to the point of...umm...LOL'ing, as the kids say. even if it was followed by extreme rib-area pain and a fit of coughing.
it's wild that we choose to give other people so much power over our feelings and then get our feelings hurt when they don't use that power the way we want them to. what the fuck is that?
anyway, i'm cool with no mystery-girl, i suppose. nothing like an enormous amount of pizza, flu medicine, guitars, 13 cardinals shows on my hard drive, a week of thanksgiving break, and an actual bed (which will someday experience being slept in) to negate most of the no-hugging-ness.
i've said too much. this is a loooooooong 13.
13b.eleven. none of this should be construed as "bitching". i am pretty fucking content, and continue to be, as is a pretty easy thing to be for someone who doesn't expect or want to be rewarded for his misguided and potentially destructive attempts to enlighten and en-happy other people's lives. hope i'm doing my job. take it easy out there.
Nov 23, 2008
big wheels keep on turnin'
something happened to me. i don't know exactly what caused it, or what the results are/were, but i can trace its trajectory like a finger trail on a frozen window, a message left behind that's meaning ices back over while you're trying to decipher it.
it started around halloween, and it ended this past wednesday night when i was sitting in my chair in my office, adjusting to being back at work after a short week and before a week's vacation. i suddenly realized that somehow the previous 2 1/2 or so weeks had somehow stretched themselves over pretty much a lifetime. do you ever have those periods of time that don't seem significant when you're in them, and then when you look back even moments after they end, you're suddenly pretty sure that the "you" you were before you started is almost already, inexplicably, unrecognizeable?
there's a lot about pre-november me that doesn't make sense to me anymore. this wasn't a conscious decision, it wasn't brought about by intentional reflection or adjustment or dissastisfaction. i just suddenly became someone else. it's sort of scary, in the sense that i feel like i'm not sure in a lot of ways suddenly what's important to me or what i'm capable of. i feel like luke skywalker after he cuts off faux-vader's hand on dagobah. something happened, i changed somehow, i'm not sure how i feel about it other than that i know i can't go back because i don't know how i left in the first place.
confused? yeah, me too.
keepin' on.
it started around halloween, and it ended this past wednesday night when i was sitting in my chair in my office, adjusting to being back at work after a short week and before a week's vacation. i suddenly realized that somehow the previous 2 1/2 or so weeks had somehow stretched themselves over pretty much a lifetime. do you ever have those periods of time that don't seem significant when you're in them, and then when you look back even moments after they end, you're suddenly pretty sure that the "you" you were before you started is almost already, inexplicably, unrecognizeable?
there's a lot about pre-november me that doesn't make sense to me anymore. this wasn't a conscious decision, it wasn't brought about by intentional reflection or adjustment or dissastisfaction. i just suddenly became someone else. it's sort of scary, in the sense that i feel like i'm not sure in a lot of ways suddenly what's important to me or what i'm capable of. i feel like luke skywalker after he cuts off faux-vader's hand on dagobah. something happened, i changed somehow, i'm not sure how i feel about it other than that i know i can't go back because i don't know how i left in the first place.
confused? yeah, me too.
keepin' on.
thy valor shall be determined by the length of thine shanks, longshanks.
i'd like to say we destroyed the cardinals. the fact is, we barely survived with our lives.
both teams played great defense, but the niners took an early 9-0 lead on three matt stewart field goals. of 51, 52, and 54 yards. yeah. that's got to be some kind of record.
unfortunately, one play after this play:
the cardinals intercepted mr. bunting and got a touchdown a play later. this would be a recurring theme, as they intercepted bunting 3 times. the second time set up an 86 yard touchdown reception that made it 13-9 (on a missed 2-point conversion, in case you were wondering).
fortunately, the niners had two more field goals up their sleeves, kicking the last one with a minute on the clock and then intercepting the cardinals' QB to keep the score at 15-13 as time ran out. this might be the first and only time the niners won a game without getting into the end zone.
this might be the first time lasers came out of my fingers instead of mustard.
just making sure you're paying attention.
both teams played great defense, but the niners took an early 9-0 lead on three matt stewart field goals. of 51, 52, and 54 yards. yeah. that's got to be some kind of record.
unfortunately, one play after this play:
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| From Other and Posts |
the cardinals intercepted mr. bunting and got a touchdown a play later. this would be a recurring theme, as they intercepted bunting 3 times. the second time set up an 86 yard touchdown reception that made it 13-9 (on a missed 2-point conversion, in case you were wondering).
fortunately, the niners had two more field goals up their sleeves, kicking the last one with a minute on the clock and then intercepting the cardinals' QB to keep the score at 15-13 as time ran out. this might be the first and only time the niners won a game without getting into the end zone.
this might be the first time lasers came out of my fingers instead of mustard.
just making sure you're paying attention.
photo flop
i switched out the picture on my music-player-widget thing from that same old tired picture of myself playing frankenmary on a bench to a vector-drawn rendering of that same old picture...which is much, much cooler and better and will make a more positive impression on my massive fanbase.
unfortunately, i either did something wrong or reverbnation takes hours to get their cookie-updating shit together because the widget pic ain't changin'. life is tough.
unfortunately, i either did something wrong or reverbnation takes hours to get their cookie-updating shit together because the widget pic ain't changin'. life is tough.
Nov 22, 2008
the floor. is hard.
something about sleeping on the floor seems to precipitate not only sore necks, shoulders, and possibly broken ribs, but also existential crises.
hmm...i have a 500 dollar bed. maybe i should start using it.
sadly i'm wired now, but i'm stocked with shitty movies to keep hair-pulling at bay until unconsciousness stops pouting in the corner and starts talking to me again.
grading tomorrow! w00t!
hmm...i have a 500 dollar bed. maybe i should start using it.
sadly i'm wired now, but i'm stocked with shitty movies to keep hair-pulling at bay until unconsciousness stops pouting in the corner and starts talking to me again.
grading tomorrow! w00t!
niners keep on rollin'
i have no pictures for any of these games, and i don't even really have very clear memories of them; a symptom of brutally cramming a game into my schedule here and there when i should have been sleeping after like 16 hours of work. sorry.
anyway, the eagles fell, as always with difficulty, 42-39. next up were the bengals, who made a fairly sad showing of themselves, but because bunting left the QB post early in the second quarter with knee bursitis and wesley jordan filled in by mostly getting sacked and throwing the ball to the other team, the game ended up being pretty close. 31-24 was the final, and it was 24-24 with about eight minutes left. seven of those eight minutes were a pretty intense back-and-forth midfield battle more reminiscent of a soccer game than a football game. then wesley dumped a pass over the secondary's head, and raymond scholl caught it and ran 80 yards for the winning touchdown. is it a coincidence that his name is one letter away from "school"? no. it's not. last to get mutilated were the steelers. this one was fairly sad until the end, the steelers doing a lot of nothing and finding themselves down 38-14 starting the fourth quarter. sadly, the "madden engine" kicked in, making the niners suck ass and allowing the steelers to get two quick scores. fortunately, 38-28 was the closest they would get, as they spent the last five minutes blowing deep-pass opportunities and getting their QB sacked.
10-1, next up is the cardinals, who we've already beaten 37-15 once.
bowes has 1433 yard with five games left...that means he needs slightly over 100 yards a game to break the 2000 yard mark for the third time in seven seasons. better get him some massive buckets of good and plentys.
anyway, the eagles fell, as always with difficulty, 42-39. next up were the bengals, who made a fairly sad showing of themselves, but because bunting left the QB post early in the second quarter with knee bursitis and wesley jordan filled in by mostly getting sacked and throwing the ball to the other team, the game ended up being pretty close. 31-24 was the final, and it was 24-24 with about eight minutes left. seven of those eight minutes were a pretty intense back-and-forth midfield battle more reminiscent of a soccer game than a football game. then wesley dumped a pass over the secondary's head, and raymond scholl caught it and ran 80 yards for the winning touchdown. is it a coincidence that his name is one letter away from "school"? no. it's not. last to get mutilated were the steelers. this one was fairly sad until the end, the steelers doing a lot of nothing and finding themselves down 38-14 starting the fourth quarter. sadly, the "madden engine" kicked in, making the niners suck ass and allowing the steelers to get two quick scores. fortunately, 38-28 was the closest they would get, as they spent the last five minutes blowing deep-pass opportunities and getting their QB sacked.
10-1, next up is the cardinals, who we've already beaten 37-15 once.
bowes has 1433 yard with five games left...that means he needs slightly over 100 yards a game to break the 2000 yard mark for the third time in seven seasons. better get him some massive buckets of good and plentys.
Nov 21, 2008
top 10 reasons lists are stupid
here's a pretty thing.
read it. love it. question the stupidity of lists written by people who have nothing to say.
while we're at it, buy me ice cream and bring it to my office.
is this thing on?
read it. love it. question the stupidity of lists written by people who have nothing to say.
while we're at it, buy me ice cream and bring it to my office.
is this thing on?
cardinology, pt. 1
finally got a chance to sit down and listen to cardinology tonight, like fourteen years after it was released. i like it, i think. i'm going to have to feel it out for awhile like pretty much all RA albums post rock n roll.
more to come as cardinology-related thoughts develop.
more to come as cardinology-related thoughts develop.
Nov 20, 2008
Nov 18, 2008
i secretly lurve chris cornell
and i feel okay admitting it now. after watching casino royale this past weekend, in preparation for seeing quantum of solace (which was teh awesomes), i can now safely claim that not only does casino have the best bond intro sequence i've seen, but the chris cornell song used as the title theme (and then elsewhere throughout the movie) kicks bottomless wells of ass.
Nov 16, 2008
annihilate/make a pizza
i'm totally sideways
or maybe the room is sideways and i'm rightways
it sure doesn't feel like it though
i have a bad moment;
i don't really like it when suddenly i'm drunk and i don't remember why
not a good idea to not do it for a good reason
but here we are anyways
i just went on a walk around pullman
and there were a few people out
but largely they avoided me
this one girl was scared i was going to hurt her puppy
she didn't act like it but i could tell
i would never hurt a puppy or a girl on purpose
but i still don't blame her from running from me
i would too sometimes if i wasn't stuck to me
i thought about buying food from IGA
but it seemed too cliche; like here comes the drunk
fucker at 4am to get shitty food and sleep off his stupid decisions
luckily i have cool friends who will let me make an ass of myself and
be all like everything is normal tomorrow
but i put myself in a bad place and i'm glad the damage was minimal
i'm working on cutting out caffeine and i stopped smoking
so i keep thinking this is a temporary adjustment but it's been like
three weeks...i'm a bit scared of overdrinking a bit
and maybe turning back into my old self
and maybe hurting people...i don't mind so much hurting myself
i can handle it if i'm asking for it, which i am
but my new friends are badass and shouldn't have to deal with old baggage
hopefully that's not what this is
hopefully it's just me not knowing how to have fun yet and trying to learn
because that would be an awesome skill to have
so i'll keep my eyes open and hope that's what it is
and we'll find out soon enough
because i'll either really smile with it
or implode
and either way it'll be a pretty fucking clear answer
that's money, honey.
or maybe the room is sideways and i'm rightways
it sure doesn't feel like it though
i have a bad moment;
i don't really like it when suddenly i'm drunk and i don't remember why
not a good idea to not do it for a good reason
but here we are anyways
i just went on a walk around pullman
and there were a few people out
but largely they avoided me
this one girl was scared i was going to hurt her puppy
she didn't act like it but i could tell
i would never hurt a puppy or a girl on purpose
but i still don't blame her from running from me
i would too sometimes if i wasn't stuck to me
i thought about buying food from IGA
but it seemed too cliche; like here comes the drunk
fucker at 4am to get shitty food and sleep off his stupid decisions
luckily i have cool friends who will let me make an ass of myself and
be all like everything is normal tomorrow
but i put myself in a bad place and i'm glad the damage was minimal
i'm working on cutting out caffeine and i stopped smoking
so i keep thinking this is a temporary adjustment but it's been like
three weeks...i'm a bit scared of overdrinking a bit
and maybe turning back into my old self
and maybe hurting people...i don't mind so much hurting myself
i can handle it if i'm asking for it, which i am
but my new friends are badass and shouldn't have to deal with old baggage
hopefully that's not what this is
hopefully it's just me not knowing how to have fun yet and trying to learn
because that would be an awesome skill to have
so i'll keep my eyes open and hope that's what it is
and we'll find out soon enough
because i'll either really smile with it
or implode
and either way it'll be a pretty fucking clear answer
that's money, honey.
I'M SORRY, I AM AN ASSHOLE AND I DESERVE TO BE DESTROYED
yeah, like it says up there.
but really, you have a grill in the bed of your F-350? are you even trying to be someone? that's so cliche it's like the rest of your life is just layed out like the answer key to a sudoku puzzle. brains are cool, get one. even though you will be shit-sideways and alone in my apartment if you try.
fuck. i'm such an idiot. self-loathing begins NOW. please stand by for download of stupidity modules.
DOWNLOAD FINISHED.
waaaaaaaah.
i should delete this in the morning, when i can see and feel again.
gah.
but really, you have a grill in the bed of your F-350? are you even trying to be someone? that's so cliche it's like the rest of your life is just layed out like the answer key to a sudoku puzzle. brains are cool, get one. even though you will be shit-sideways and alone in my apartment if you try.
fuck. i'm such an idiot. self-loathing begins NOW. please stand by for download of stupidity modules.
DOWNLOAD FINISHED.
waaaaaaaah.
i should delete this in the morning, when i can see and feel again.
gah.
Nov 14, 2008
mike prewett is awesome.
this guy just sent me all of his music, including what appears to be a stellar 2-disc mixtape (with liner notes) for no reason. other than that he's awesome.
couldn't have been better timing either (since i'm obviously frustrated enough right now to kill a rhinoceros with my bare hands). i am currently listening to an actual, official-looking copy of "the becky adams ep", one of my favorite albums of 2007, and it's excellent, still. it's also nice to have a copy of "leaving" to replace the copy i have that's scratched to shit from carrying it around in a cracked CD case inside my acoustic guitar case for like a year when i was road-tripping from washington to ohio and back.
good times.
couldn't have been better timing either (since i'm obviously frustrated enough right now to kill a rhinoceros with my bare hands). i am currently listening to an actual, official-looking copy of "the becky adams ep", one of my favorite albums of 2007, and it's excellent, still. it's also nice to have a copy of "leaving" to replace the copy i have that's scratched to shit from carrying it around in a cracked CD case inside my acoustic guitar case for like a year when i was road-tripping from washington to ohio and back.
good times.
10:05am. still pissed.
i don't feel any better. fortunately, they're spraying that sealant that releases airborne silicon (read: carcinogenic) on the sidewalks again, so soon i'll either be dead or high. or both.
impotently spraying sad all over teh intarwebs
so, 29 hours away from the beginning of the festival, after a week of preparation (including an awesomely fun and simultaneously reassuring 8-hour drive-everywhere-and-buy-things session tonight), and after a month of planning ahead to make time to actually make the film on saturday morning/night...apple postpones the festival until "after the holidays".
ARRRRGH. so fucking frustrated. i don't usually write on here just to vent. it's usually, if it's venting at all, venting for a purpose. i don't have a purpose right now; i'm just fucking angry.
how the hell do you suddenly realize that you're having logistical problems setting up your worldwide internet film festival a day before it starts? especially if you're APPLE?
what the hell?!
it's been really fun getting ready for this, and though i absolutely love making movies and would probably throw my awesome and rewarding career as a teacher away in a second if i had a chance to make them regularly, i'm most disappointed because i feel like i've gotten to know a few people really well during this process and have begun to think of them as really good friends...and i was really looking forward to slogging it out with them this weekend. instead, now, it'll be back to the grind as usual all weekend, my next justifiable break coming whenever they decide to reschedule the festival for (january? march?)...that is assuming everyone will still be interested in participating by then (i sure will, but i can't speak for everyone else).
well i guess i have thanksgiving break and christmas break, but everyone (including me) scatters to the four winds at those times, so that doesn't really work so much for socializing.
our little "meeting" tonight was great and i was stoked about his film and the experience of making it. i guess the silver lining is that we'll have more time to prepare, to learn the ins and outs of final cut and camera-ing and whatnot...and i'm sure as it gets to be a few days from now and things return to normal the disappointment will disappear; it always does.
but right now i'm just really annoyed and i know the rest of the guys and gals are too, and that's even more annoying. this fucking sucks. i have to teach in five hours, so i guess i should go to bed. ugh.
ARRRRGH. so fucking frustrated. i don't usually write on here just to vent. it's usually, if it's venting at all, venting for a purpose. i don't have a purpose right now; i'm just fucking angry.
how the hell do you suddenly realize that you're having logistical problems setting up your worldwide internet film festival a day before it starts? especially if you're APPLE?
what the hell?!
it's been really fun getting ready for this, and though i absolutely love making movies and would probably throw my awesome and rewarding career as a teacher away in a second if i had a chance to make them regularly, i'm most disappointed because i feel like i've gotten to know a few people really well during this process and have begun to think of them as really good friends...and i was really looking forward to slogging it out with them this weekend. instead, now, it'll be back to the grind as usual all weekend, my next justifiable break coming whenever they decide to reschedule the festival for (january? march?)...that is assuming everyone will still be interested in participating by then (i sure will, but i can't speak for everyone else).
well i guess i have thanksgiving break and christmas break, but everyone (including me) scatters to the four winds at those times, so that doesn't really work so much for socializing.
our little "meeting" tonight was great and i was stoked about his film and the experience of making it. i guess the silver lining is that we'll have more time to prepare, to learn the ins and outs of final cut and camera-ing and whatnot...and i'm sure as it gets to be a few days from now and things return to normal the disappointment will disappear; it always does.
but right now i'm just really annoyed and i know the rest of the guys and gals are too, and that's even more annoying. this fucking sucks. i have to teach in five hours, so i guess i should go to bed. ugh.
Nov 12, 2008
neighbor of the beast
this was originally going to be post 667...get it?
then i got carried with all that picture garbage.
i'm wearing my awesome heavy-ass wool backpacking socks for the first time of the year tonight. i'm still putting all the pictures i take into a "fall 08" folder, but pretty soon i'm going to have to face up to that whole world-orbiting-the-sun thing and make a "winter 08" folder. that's cool. but it should snow. at least.
all the ahead-ed-ness i've built up working my ass off over the last ten weeks was pretty much frittered away this weekend. which is fine. but just funny. it was like i could only overachieve for so long and then i had to start underachieving for awhile. i cancelled class yesterday, and veteran's day cancelled class today. so i basically had a four-day weekend, and for a large part of that weekend i hung out with friends, went to bars, spent money i didn't have on dinners i wasn't hungry enough to justify, and basically rediscovered what it's like to enjoy being a part of something.
i also slept a lot. i'm always a little hesitant to get into the habit of sleeping too much, because it makes me really depressed, really quickly. especially during this time of the year when so many of the hours of the day are dark. but i didn't really have a choice this time...i didn't have to set an alarm for four days and on some level my body just sort of said "fuck this" and i ended up sleeping until 2 or 3 in the afternoon every day. i adjusted pretty well because it was necessary to, but i'm also glad i have to get up again tomorrow and get on a normal sleep schedule...just in time for the film festival on friday/saturday/sunday...
i spent the afternoon/evening at rico's with a few of the people and the professor from one of my grad seminars, then came back here to catch up on some of the work i should have been doing earlier in the weekend. i did actually clean the shit out of my apartment this weekend, which took most of a day but was something i really needed to do.
anyway, thanks in large part to my friend sarah i was able to avoid a pedagogy meltdown after i got home...and i've spent the rest of the night touching up this paper draft i'm supposed to turn in...right now. whew.
so i'm sitting here at the moment, and despite the happenings of the last few days and their awesomeness, i feel suddenly cold and quiet and shut-down and extremely lonely...well, lonely's not really the word...i guess "alone" is more appropriate. which is weird. because i'm less alone than i've probably been since i last lived with a bunch of friends way back when. but this is what always seems to happen when i spend a bunch of time with people and enjoy myself: when it's over, my immediate, unintentiona response is to feel completely abandoned.
i think that's probably why for so many years i was (i like to this "was" instead of "am") mostly a loner...when i'm alone all the time, it sort of makes me an antisocial wanker and life is sort of boring and doesn't have much of a point outside of selfishness/self-indulgence, but then when i'm not a loner and try to really engage with people, i just keep wanting to do it more and more and it seems like a never reach a point where the cessation of socializing doesn't just leave me feeling like shit.
i don't do any of this on purpose and obviously i realize it's fucked up, but it's a recurring theme in my life, from pretty much about as far back as i can remember having thoughts about other people. nature vs. nurture my ass.
i just typed "myspace" by mistake when typing "my ass".
that means it's probably time to eat house and watch some pizza.
ohwhateverfuck.
the moral of the story? i'm a fucking weirdo and am apparently unconsciously unbelievably demanding socially, and the only cure for it is for me to just become a hermit and be miserable and bored because of that instead.
there's got to be some constructive answer to that whole problem, i just haven't figured it out yet. good thing i'm crazy, or life would be boring.
back to my lonely, boring, miserable life with all of my awesome, intelligent, interesting, friends that i totally don't deserve...ha. ha. ha.
accordionz. is that how you spell it?
then i got carried with all that picture garbage.
i'm wearing my awesome heavy-ass wool backpacking socks for the first time of the year tonight. i'm still putting all the pictures i take into a "fall 08" folder, but pretty soon i'm going to have to face up to that whole world-orbiting-the-sun thing and make a "winter 08" folder. that's cool. but it should snow. at least.
all the ahead-ed-ness i've built up working my ass off over the last ten weeks was pretty much frittered away this weekend. which is fine. but just funny. it was like i could only overachieve for so long and then i had to start underachieving for awhile. i cancelled class yesterday, and veteran's day cancelled class today. so i basically had a four-day weekend, and for a large part of that weekend i hung out with friends, went to bars, spent money i didn't have on dinners i wasn't hungry enough to justify, and basically rediscovered what it's like to enjoy being a part of something.
i also slept a lot. i'm always a little hesitant to get into the habit of sleeping too much, because it makes me really depressed, really quickly. especially during this time of the year when so many of the hours of the day are dark. but i didn't really have a choice this time...i didn't have to set an alarm for four days and on some level my body just sort of said "fuck this" and i ended up sleeping until 2 or 3 in the afternoon every day. i adjusted pretty well because it was necessary to, but i'm also glad i have to get up again tomorrow and get on a normal sleep schedule...just in time for the film festival on friday/saturday/sunday...
i spent the afternoon/evening at rico's with a few of the people and the professor from one of my grad seminars, then came back here to catch up on some of the work i should have been doing earlier in the weekend. i did actually clean the shit out of my apartment this weekend, which took most of a day but was something i really needed to do.
anyway, thanks in large part to my friend sarah i was able to avoid a pedagogy meltdown after i got home...and i've spent the rest of the night touching up this paper draft i'm supposed to turn in...right now. whew.
so i'm sitting here at the moment, and despite the happenings of the last few days and their awesomeness, i feel suddenly cold and quiet and shut-down and extremely lonely...well, lonely's not really the word...i guess "alone" is more appropriate. which is weird. because i'm less alone than i've probably been since i last lived with a bunch of friends way back when. but this is what always seems to happen when i spend a bunch of time with people and enjoy myself: when it's over, my immediate, unintentiona response is to feel completely abandoned.
i think that's probably why for so many years i was (i like to this "was" instead of "am") mostly a loner...when i'm alone all the time, it sort of makes me an antisocial wanker and life is sort of boring and doesn't have much of a point outside of selfishness/self-indulgence, but then when i'm not a loner and try to really engage with people, i just keep wanting to do it more and more and it seems like a never reach a point where the cessation of socializing doesn't just leave me feeling like shit.
i don't do any of this on purpose and obviously i realize it's fucked up, but it's a recurring theme in my life, from pretty much about as far back as i can remember having thoughts about other people. nature vs. nurture my ass.
i just typed "myspace" by mistake when typing "my ass".
that means it's probably time to eat house and watch some pizza.
ohwhateverfuck.
the moral of the story? i'm a fucking weirdo and am apparently unconsciously unbelievably demanding socially, and the only cure for it is for me to just become a hermit and be miserable and bored because of that instead.
there's got to be some constructive answer to that whole problem, i just haven't figured it out yet. good thing i'm crazy, or life would be boring.
back to my lonely, boring, miserable life with all of my awesome, intelligent, interesting, friends that i totally don't deserve...ha. ha. ha.
accordionz. is that how you spell it?
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