Sunday, August 31, 2003
*edit* changing/adding to this blog.... so if you read it before you're just going to have to read it again to get all the news. so sorry. **
This is sort of a random blog at a random time, but I wanted to make a few eensy teensy changes in the links on the side, and you have to publish something in order for them to show up. The nosepilot link was marked down as temporarily broken, until I found the right link again. I found it. For cat's sake, visit it now if you haven't before. It is, quite simply, the definitive random yet beautiful Internet Flash animation.
I realized that the mailing link on the side was still my Yahoo one. If that's the address you have, I'm still checking it daily, so don't stress overmuch about sending me mail there. But I am trying to get the bulk of my mail over to my Michigan address, that being samcat@umich.edu. The one and only reason for this is that the Michigan mailbox gives me a lot more space than the Yahoo one does. Yahoo allots me 4 MB. Michigan gives me 50 MB. Yeah, you see my reasoning.
Today is Corey's birthday! Happy freaking birthday, Corey! Maybe I could send him his card if he would give me his address... *insert irate growls here*
Not much doing today... did some shopping. I got a dictionary and thesaurus, and a notebook to start me off (until my teachers tell me what I'm actually going to need). I'll probably go back to the bookstore and get my chemistry book later. Yeah, I know I should've gotten it while I was already there, but I didn't know what section I was in. Now I know.
I also got some groceries... I didn't feel like lunching out today, and the dining hall in my dorm still isn't open, so I bought bread and peanut butter and jelly and made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I'm wicked resourceful, me. I also bought more bottled water because I'm going through it at a ridiculous rate... I dunno, soda started to disagree with me, so I've been sticking to water. I feel like Leslie.
A couple of the girls on my hall went home for the weekend. I talked to Seth again today, and his roommate also went home for the weekend. Now there's a luxury I haven't got. Lucky buggers.
Things are still pretty 'eh' here, people seem to be waiting for classes to start. I mean, those are the people you're going to become friends with, especially in the art school, since the classes are relatively small. But things are fairly quiet until then. There's a free movie night on the field behind my dorm tonight or tomorrow... I might check it out, if nothing else is going on and if I am so inclined.
There are several other things about which I could rant, but I won't post them here, seeing as this is public domain and all. Wouldn't want to wound anyone's delicate sensibilities.
If I don't have your college address yet, give it to me, you evil people. Sheesh. My email's on the side, I check it daily, and you can even send it to Yahoo if you so desire. Also be sure to send me your new email addresses, if you have new emails. You can give me your phone number if you wish, but I make no guarantees as to whether or not I'll use it. At least you know that if you give me your addresses I'll send you stuff.
Once again, this is mostly a blog of boringness and complaints. I am sorry about this. I also keep telling myself to stop blogging every day, but then I always find time and think to myself, "Hey! I could be blogging right now!" And then I do.
To make up for the boringness of blog, have a lemur.
aawwww. ain't he precious? he's a red ruffed lemur, in case you were curious
I went out to get my chemistry book just now. Yich, the thing is massive. And expensive. But we already knew it was going to be expensive. *despondent sigh*
Anywho, my dorm is one of what are called the 'Hill dorms'. I think the majority of kids who live in the dorms end up on the Hill... it's a dorm row, if you will. Couzens, Alice Lloyd, Stockwell (all girls), Mary Markley, and my own very dear Mosher Jordan.
There are, of course, other dorms on campus... West, East, and South Quad are all on Central Campus, Bursley, Baits I, and Baits II are on North Campus, and that's only the larger dorms... there are tons of smaller dorms, like Fletcher, Oxford Housing, Betsy Barbour, and so on. Still, I'm pretty certain the highest percentage of freshman and sophomores live on the Hill.
The point being that it is not surprising to find out that someone you know is living on the Hill.
I say this because I, of course, am in Mosher Jordan (and I do intend to get pictures up at some point). And I heard tell (although it may not be accurate telling) that Sasha is in Stockwell. Today, as I was walking over the bridge which connects the Hill dorms to Central Campus, who should I run into but Swampscott's own Dean.
Turns out he lives in Markley, another one of the Hill dorms. Swampscott is representin' out here, let me tell you. We're just inundating the Hill, what with our three people and all.
Anyways, it was awfully nice to see a face from home. Yeah yeah yeah, I know. If it's awfully nice now to see a face from home, I'm going to have one hell of a time making it to December break. That being the first time I go home.
Got a package from home today, which made me happy. Hooray for mail! Everyone should send me mail. Email is good and glorious, but I think that everyone should send me snail mail, because it is so glorious to get it. Seeing how much I enjoy receiving it, I will be sure to send mail to everyone who's addresses I have.
If you want my address, just send me a query at samcat@umich.edu. I won't post it herein, that's a security no-no.
I think I'll go eat dinner soon. Hmm. Yeah. Now there's an idea.
4:01 PM
Saturday, August 30, 2003
Hey hey hey! First Michigan football game!!
It was in-freaking-credible. You have no idea. You cannot have any idea. You think you have been to football games before, but you are mistaken. You have not been to a football game unless you have been to a University of Michigan game.
We won, of course, seeing as we were playing Central Michigan. They're not exactly a stellar team. It ended up being 45 to 7, I think... it might have been 48 or something.
The stadium is a sight which has to be seen to be believed. It is ridiculously huge. They announce the number of people at the game... there were 110,637 people at today's game. I mean, I can barely even conceive of that many people in one place. Swampscott has around 14,000 people living in it, and there's never any event which gets the entire town to turn out. Over one hundred and ten thousand people for a football game. Mass insanity.
i made this out of two separate pictures... and i still think i'm missing some of the stadium in the middle... you really can't get the full impression from these pictures, they're much too small to accurately convey it
Our marching band is huge. They're also really good. The halftime show had both bands (Michigan's and Central's) playing... Central did some kind of Disney movie tune medley, it made me think of Jessica. She would've loved it. Michigan did one hit wonders... at one point they were playing Hey Mickey, and everyone except for the drummers put down their instruments and started shaking their behinds. It was surreal. The one hit wonders business made me think of Kate, it was her sort of music.
Nearly perfect weather for the game... it was sunny and there was a cool breeze which blew sometimes. If it had been blowing all of the time, and if the sun hadn't been quite so powerful, it would've been nice. Alas, the sun was rather strong, and I fried. My neck is pretty red and my arms are burnt almost beyond recognition. Hoo ya, do they ever sting. Unfun.
At least my face didn't get burned... I had my Spinners visor. I love that thing. I think it confuses people, though, because I caught a lot of people staring at it. Or maybe it was the blue hair. I know not. Maybe a combination of the two.
Anywho, I made football buddies! The guy sitting next to me was nice, and he knew a good deal about football... we were exchanging professional remarks by the second quarter. Didn't catch his name or anything, but that's OK, I'll see him next gameday anyways.
I'm sitting really high up... row 92. I'm not sure how many rows there are, but I'm maybe 5 or 10 away from the very top. It's not bad though, I could see perfectly fine (surprisingly fine).
The walk from my dorm to the stadium is fun, because you walk past all the frats, and they're going nuts. It was 10 in the morning and people were already drunk. For some reason, one of the frats was blasting bagpipe music. I have no idea why this was so... I mean, they're Greek, right? Not Scottish. Unless I missed something vital here.
I got there really early, because I wasn't sure how long it was going to take me to walk from my dorm to the stadium, and I didn't know how long it would take to find my seat (a bit, as it happens... I went in the wrong way and had to walk halfway around the stadium). But I still got there about an hour before kickoff. So I got a drink (an obscenely expensive drink... like 3 bucks for a cup of Pepsi) and made my way up to my seat. There weren't a lot of people there yet, it being so early and all. No one I knew was in my section... I was in 28, everyone else I had spoken to was in either 29 or 30.
After a few minutes, in which I checked the digital camera to see how far the zoom would go, more people started trickling in. A girl sat down in the row in front of me. We started chatting, and she moved up to sit next to me. We ended up talking throughout the entire game. She was quite nice. Her name's Caroline, and she's in the LSandA but dorming on North Campus, for some unfathomable reason. We exchanged emails but even if we don't talk again soon we'll see each other at the next game. Football buddies are nice that way.
There was all sorts of insanity going on in the crowd during the game. There's an entire student section, which is like one whole corner of the stadium. You can tell where the student section ends because the students are the ones who make the really exaggerated gestures... when the band plays the fight song, you can see the edge of people who are punching their fists into the air and those who aren't.
There are, apparently, a lot of things that you do at the games. You scream on an increasing pitch and whirl your hat around during kickoffs, and you rattle your keys whenever the opposing team is on third down. If Michigan foils the other's team's attempt to make first down on a third down, the band plays a certain song and everyone makes a chopping motion with one arm.
I have no idea what this last is supposed to mean. It looks like the Tomahawk Chop that they do at Indians games, but it can't be. I mean, that wouldn't make any sense. I speculated about this with the guy sitting next to me.. both of us were equally perplexed. We resolved to try to find out before the next game.
We also got an intense wave going... then the student section started directing it. Like, a whole slew of people in the student section would start jabbing their thumbs downwards as the wave approached, and then the wave would go in slow motion. It was the craziest damn thing I've ever seen... if you've never seen over 110,000 people do the wave in slow motion, you're missing out. It looked like the entire world had been slowed down.
Then we got a cheer going where one half of the stadium would shout 'Go!', and then the other half would shout 'Blue!'. Again, if you've never heard 110,000 people shouting like this, you're missing out. It reverberates.
I do not understand how some people can come to the University of Michigan and not get season football tickets. It's just... wrong.
(note: The girls from my hall I went to Maize Craze with yesterday are Pam and Shelby. I think I forgot to mention their names in the last blog)
5:28 PM
Friday, August 29, 2003
Well. Today, at least, has been a better day than yesterday was. Sort of.
This morning and afternoon I was still really zonked and pretty ill-feeling. I spent the morning doing something or other, I don't even remember what, just generally trying to not be sick again. Later in the afternoon, when I was feeling a tad bit better, I wandered down to the Michigan Union, which is this place on campus that has a food court in the basement. I'm sure other sorts of things go on there, but the food court is all I need to know about.
I got a salad but I only picked at it, since I was still feeling pretty queasy. Then I meandered on down to this little market place, where I purchased a bag of baby carrots and a bag of pretzels. Safe chewing foods for ill folks.
So I went back to the dorm and sat on my bed eating carrots and reading. After a while of that, I started feeling better... still uneasy in the stomach, but much better than I felt last night.
Around 5:30 a couple of girls from down the hall stopped over and asked if me and my roommate wanted to go to the Maize Craze. My roommate sort of slipped out of the room and disappeared without answering, but I said sure. So to Maize Craze I went.
This is sort of a big pep rally thing for the first football game of the year, which is tomorrow. Everyone went to this big field thing that's behind the Hill dorms (of which my dorm is one) and the cheerleaders did some things, and the band played 'Hail to the Victors', that being the glorious Michigan fight song.
The dance team also performed... they were pretty good, but it was strange, because they were wearing pink shirts and black pants, and they were holding blue and yellow pom poms for one of their dances. Bizarreness.
There was also food, which I ate a little of. I'm actually starting to get hungry now, I might break open the pretzels at some point. They had those sumo wrestler suit things, and people were going at each other in them. There were also some of those giant inflatable things you see at carnivals that little kids go in and jump on. Everyone was sitting on the grass eating, or standing around watching the people in the sumo suits or the inflatable things, or going in the sumo suits or inflatable things... just generally a big party-like thing, but with more people on that field than there are in my entire high school.
Then I went and picked up the tshirt that came free with my season tickets for football. It's neat, it's bright yellow.
I then returned to the dorm, because I wanted to make sure the digital camera was all set for the game tomorrow. I'm going to try to take pictures, so I can show them to all the non-Michigan folks out there... you won't believe it until you see it.
I also mucked about with the computer some more. I put all the songs I wanted into iTunes, so music now travels with my computer. I activated iPhoto, for use with the digital camera. I changed the backdrop of my computer... it was just one of the generic Mac ones before. I put on a picture that's actually a still image taken off of a video I took... the video is on the computer at home, but I put the still (and a ton of other pics) on a CD with me here. It's a loverly little shot of the sunset over the Swampscott bay, with Boston way in the distance.
this is what my computer looks like now
There was a really cool sunset here tonight and I took a picture of it, but for some reason Village Photos doesn't like the file, so I can't put it online. I hope it doesn't do that for all the pictures off of the digital camera, that would be most unfortunate.
As I was doing these computerly things, a bunch of people came by the room to say hi and to chat. I guess a lot of the upperclassmen moved in today, so now there are more people on my hall. So I met more people. They're mostly sophomores.
I had a very lovely chat with one of them, named Jen, who's some sort of ecology major, although she's not crunchy at all. She stopped by the room to say hi, and she saw the few books I brought along with me to college. One of them's Ender's Game, which it turns out is one of her favorite books. Hooray. She's married to a guy in the Army, and she's going to live with him in California at the end of this schoolyear. Made me think of Monsieur Chulsky, who is now married to the lovely Celine and will soon be living in merry ol' Paris.
Another girl named Nakia, who lives one door down and on the other side of the hall from me, has a single. That lucky, lucky, lucky duck. I writhes in jealousy, I does. But she is a sophomore, so I suppose it's ok... if she were a freshman with a single, I would have started screaming. Ah, I would kill for a single.
Anyways, we got to chatting, and she asked what I was majoring in. So I told her... trying to double major in art and zoology, I am. She asked if I had any art here. Quite honestly, this caught me off guard, maybe because no one else has asked. I think I said something like, "Oh, um, uh, yeah... er, I think I have a sketchbook here, or something." She then expressed an interest in seeing it.
So of course I let her look through it... it's a relatively new sketchbook, there's not too much in there... mostly pen and ink stuff from in Boston this summer, and a couple of biologically-oriented drawings, and a couple of drawings from the Cape. She said that they were 'awesomely good', which was awfully nice. Probably untrue, but awfully nice.
Ha, I have my Levellers CD on, and I'm sort of blasting it. With the dorm door open. Well, my hall deserves it, someone was blasting rap earlier. Ugh. And I couldn't put any of my CDs on, because it just made a cacophonous racket with the competing stereos. Well, I guess I could have closed the door, but a) that's no fun, then no one can look in and b) then the room gets really hot, and it's freaking hot enough as it is.
So right now I'm just vegging out, sitting on my bed with the laptop, thusly running the ethernet cable all over the room... as if we don't have enough cables going everywhichaway already. I have so many various cables for so many various devices that I put little labels one some of them today. I mean, really... ethernet cables (mine, Brynn's, and the one connecting the ethernet port to the hub), printer cable, two for the digital camera, two for the iPod, and untold millions to connect the laptop to everything else it could ever conceivably be connected to... phone lines, chargers, etc. Vurry confusing without the labels, and my desk is a mess of wires even with 'em.
I still have barely seen my roommate. You see, she knows a lot of people here already... 15 from her school came here, and she has all sorts of relatives and friends of the family here. So she's not really too concerned about making friends with the roommate. I think that if I had a roommate who didn't know anyone here (such as myself), we'd be a lot more chummy.
Hmm, well, I suppose that I do know a couple of people here. I've kept in touch with Seth from orientation... actually he called today. We chatted for a bit. I haven't seen him yet, though, since he's up on North Campus. Of course I also know Dean and Sasha, the two other Swampscotters at UMich, but I haven't seen either one of them. Sasha, I think I heard, is in Stockwell, which is the dorm next door, but it's an enormous dorm so there's no reason I would have seen her. Dean could be anywhere.
But I digress. Why, you ask, have I barely spoken with Brynn yet? She's always out somewhere with her buddies, and even when she's in the room she's on the cell phone. She's out right now, I think she's at some event or other at the Hillel. I didn't much feel like going, I'm still a little under the weather and I don't want to push it. I just hope she doesn't come in half so late as she did last night (around 3 am), I want to get to sleep so I can wake up with enough time to get a shower and head out to the game nice and early.
Only two showers for the entire hall. Not good. They're not bad showers though, much nicer than the ones they had in East Quad (the dorm we stayed in for orientation). The water pressure is really high, so you don't have to stand there forever trying to rinse the shampoo out of your hair. And there's this little anteroom thing enclosed along with the shower stall, where you can put your towels and stuff. So not too bad. But they really need more than two.
I think I shall go try and doodle something silly and dorky for my door. Maybe another XMen Wolverine with the Michigan block M. Ha ha. Yes. Excellence.
10:19 PM
Thursday, August 28, 2003
I am at college. Man oh man, am I ever at college.
People say that college is an excellent time. I suppose that I am waiting for the excellent times to begin, because moving in was one of the most evil things, if not the single most evil thing, I have ever had to take part in.
I awoke in Southfield, painfully aware that this was the last time I was going to be in a non-communal bathroom for a very long time. That, my friends, is a sad, sad thought.
We got to Ann Arbor fairly early and actually managed to get a decent parking space. Then we began dragging my copious belongings into the room. We made a fun discovery.
See, my room number is 197. So I thought (assumed) that I was on the first floor. Alas, the ground level floor is actually the second floor. I am in the basement. The. Basement.
Plus side! I am conveniently located on the same floor as the dining hall and the laundry room. Down side! I am in the basement. It is exceedingly hot down here. We have two fans going and one window open (the other one doesn't open) and still I am shvitzing.
The dorm is really old, and it looks really nice and sort of gothic on the outside. I'll take some pictures with the digital camera later and upload them... hopefully they'll be ready for the next blog. So yes, nice dorm outside, really nice sort of old-fashioned lounges on the ground floor. The basement is just old. Not old and nice, just old.
My dormroom is heinous. The walls are the exact shade of off-white that the basement of good ol' SHS is painted, which ushers forth all sorts of wonderous mental associations for me. All of the furniture is old and falling to pieces.
We do have shelves, but you can't put anything much heavier than a roll of paper towels on them, because they're so unstable. The desks have these little top shelf things, but they're not properly connected to the regular desk, so they wobble dangerously. Everything is scuffed, and most of it is dirty. Was dirty, rather. My mother, lawd bless 'er, went over most everything with paper towels and cleaning solution, so that the room is now survivable.
The closets do not lock. My laptop comes with a lock, but what am I supposed to lock it to? The bed? The radiator?
Speaking of the radiator! It's one of those massive water radiators... you know what I mean. The metal ones. The ones that always prompt your parents to tell you not to jump on the bed, because you could crack your head open on it. It's right next to my bed. As in, if I roll over in the night, I could crack my head open on it. Thank cats it's the summer right now, because if that thing were on, my bed would probably catch fire.
Hopefully I'll get the bed lofted before long, so that the radiator will cease to be a fire hazard. Oh yes, I nearly forgot. See, I want (need, because the room is so small) a lofted bed. There are people who build the lofts, but they. ran. out. of. lofts.
So we had to set up the entire room without the loft in it, which means that when they finally do get around to building my loft (I'm on a waiting list), we're going to have to rearrange the furniture, with all of our stuff already in it. And sawdust is probably going to get all over everything.
To make things even merrier, my check card/ATM card wasn't working... some problem or other with the PIN, I don't know. So now I can't use it until Tuesday.
Obviously, I got my computer today. I went up to North Campus to pick it up. There was this whole vast process we had to go through to get the computer and all it's accoutrements. Then they made us sit in this class thing so that we could all set up our computers the same way, so we wouldn't have trouble later. It wasn't too bad, the building was air conditioned.
The computer is very nice, although I'm having trouble adjusting to the keyboard. Every time I go to hit the 'a' button I accidentally hit 'caps lock', and it's rather annoying. I'm also still a little rough with the touch pad.
We got a ton of software with this thing... the entire Adobe package was already loaded on. And they gave us Final Cut Pro, which is a professional video editing program. The box it came in was really big and really heavy, which confused me, because it's just software, so I assumed it would just be a couple of CDs. All of the weight, it turns out, comes from the manuals you need in order to use the software. There are four manuals of mostly equal size. I picked one up, it was 630 pages. Four of those. No wonder the box was so heavy. I despair of ever being able to use the program.
And to make things almost infinitely better, I'm sick. Not like, feeling a little off because I'm very uprooted. Like, sick sick. Like, I get spent the last hour or so in the bathroom kind of sick. Now I'm sitting on my bed feeling very very tired and very very nauseous and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. And, despite my extreme fatigue, I can't go to sleep because a) the entire hall, including my roommate, is still awake and b) I feel so nauseous that I wouldn't be able to fall asleep.
I haven't a clue what it is, at first it wasn't anything much and I thought it was just nerves, maybe. But then I got really exceedingly sick very quickly. So now I don't know, maybe I picked up a bug or something, or maybe it's something I ate. All's I know is that I feel worse than the dead spiders in my dormroom light fixture. And I say that in all seriousness.
My roommate comes from a high school that's smaller than mine, and there are 15 kids from her school here. There's two from my school. Half of that 15 are in my room right now, and I really, really, really do not need this right now. I think they're leaving for a frat party or something, and I hope to all that's feline and holy that they go soon.
I know this is the first day and we're supposed to be all social and whatnot, but not only am I utterly uninterested in frat parties, I am also most ill. Urrrrgh. I can't even believe how sick I am. This is ri-freaking-diculous. I go to college and I get sick.
Die, fate, die!
I am having an almost unbelievably fun move-in day, let me tell you. Disaster compounded by disaster, and then I get violently, viscerally ill. I probably won't get to sleep at all tonight, I'll probably have to keep going in and out of the bathroom all night long. And that's after maybe 3 hours of sleep before a 12 hour drive yesterday, during which I barely nodded off, and not as much sleep as I should have had last night. I haven't been sick like this all year, it just has to happen now. Today.
Life hates me.
I'm going to go do some concentrated breathing and try very hard to not have to go back into the bathroom. Probably won't work, but one can hope.
6:59 PM
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Well.
Here I am in Michigan again. It's nearly time for the Great Moving Into College Fiasco. Vast numbers of kids moving into four or five dorms on the same street, with only the most limited parking you can imagine. And each one of these kids has so much stuff crammed in their respective vehicles that the driver cannot see out of the rear window. Oh yes. This is going to be infinite good times.
I'm at my grandmother's house tonight... we head over to the dorms bright and early tomorrow morning. The drive up here was... well, it was probably the best possible drive that it could have been, but it was still a drive from Boston to Detroit, and that's never really a slice of seven-layer cake.
We actually had a splendid lack of traffic, so the drive ended up being almost exactly 12 hours, as opposed to the projected 12 and a half to 13. Hooray. Around hour 5 or 6 I was quite ready for the trip to be over. Alas. T'was not to be.
We didn't have much trouble at the borders, either, which was nice. The border into Canada was as simple as it's ever been. The US one wasn't much worse than it's been... I mean, they didn't just ask where we were going and wave us through (which is what happened on the way into Canada), but they didn't make us get out of the car or go through all the luggage or anysuchthing. Rather reasonable, if you ask me.
So tomorrow's the big day, I just thought I'd drop a blog beforehand, since I'm not sure when I'll be back online. I'm fairly certain that I'm getting the computer tomorrow (it's waiting to be picked up in the Art building), but I'm not certain what I have to do to get it online. Plus, cat knows that tomorrow is going to be hectic enough.
I already miss the cats. Not going to deal well with that aspect of college life.
Good luck to everyone who's already left for college... the whole Syracuse crew, both the Drummonds (Lehigh and Tufts), Maddie (McGill), Jessica (Tufts), and Noah (Brown).
Must trot, the phone needs freeing... I shall blog again as soon as I can, I know you're just waiting on tenterhooks for my upcoming entries.
9:42 PM
Sunday, August 24, 2003
Ha ha!
After many months of searching, a victory is achieved!
I have found my stuffed tribble!
mine is pure white
I look foward to leaving it prominently displayed in my dorm room, thus confusing and worrying everyone who enters, with the possible exception of the engineering students.
Lawdy, do I ever love tribbles. Especially a stuffed one, which has all of the cuteness and none of the destructive reproductive habits.
If you've never been to the Mac Store in the Northshore Mall, you really should go check it out, especially if you've got a Mac. And if you have any sort of problem whatsoever with either your Mac hardware or your Mac software, bring it in and ask the folks at the Genius Bar.
These people are so superbly trained, or so superbly skilled, or some superb combination of the two, that it defies all expectations. We've been having some mild issues with Internet compatibility and our Mac. It wasn't anything horrible that prevented us from using the computer, but it was pretty persistent and annoying. After a while we had gotten more or less used to it and were resigned to accept it as a fact of life, a small price to pay for the sheer, unadulterated joy of owning and using a Mac.
But we were in the store the other day, so we thought, What the heck, we'll ask the Genius Bar guys. We explained the problem (probably very incoherently), and they listened with great attention. They then proceeded to tell us exactly how to fix the problem, explaining it in terms that we were able to understand, with not the slightest bit of condescension. Not only did they tell us what the problem was and how to fix it, they explained why it had been a problem in the first place.
These guys truly do deserve the name 'Genius Bar'. They are extremely intelligent people with an unbelievable understanding of all things Apple. Further discussion with them revealed that they were also extremely well-read individuals who had either graduated from good schools or were currently enrolled in them. They have a great ability to juggle people waiting at the Bar, answering quick questions while someone else's computer is rebooting, being quick to ask their Genius compatriots if they don't know the answer right away, and treating everyone's queries with equal gravity (people were asking complicated questions about highly specific commands in certain computer languages, and other people were there because they thought their plug might be bent).
Perhaps more importantly, these people were just damn nice. They never laughed or tutted at people asking questions, not even the people with the possibly bent plug. The Genius Bar people were perfectly willing to chat aimiably about books, or movies, or Macs, and they were able to do so while simultaneously helping three or four people with computer woes (both real and imagined).
Now that's genius.
5:58 PM
Saturday, August 23, 2003
Howdy all.
Hope you haven't got that email virus yet, it's a pain in the rear. My mailbox got inundated, yahoo said I'd overrun my bandwidth quota because of all the email, just generally icky. Of course I haven't been dumb enough to actually open any of 'em, so no one should get hit from me, but it's a pain to get stuck by everyone else who got infected.
I'm not entirely sure it would even infect a Mac properly... most of these things are targeted at Windows and, as such, don't work on Macs. But I'm not foolish enough to open them anyways. These viruses are always a pain, 'cause they come at you off of emails that you know, for the most part. That's how people get tricked into opening them, the silly uninformed folk.
So be wary of any email with attachments you get, folks, unless you're expecting it. Even if you know the person who it's from. I'm not 110% sure I didn't somehow get tagged with it, so if you're not expecting email with attachments from me, you'd be better off not opening it, or emailing me first to see if it's safe to do so.
Look alive, people! Don't be foolish. 'Cause when you get infected and your address book gets rifled, then everyone in your book gets slapped with these infected emails. Not fun.
Enough of that public-service-type blogging.
A couple of days ago I went to Marblehead Neck with my mother to see what there was to be seen in the Sanctuary. There's a nest of cedar waxwings which is so extremely close to the path that it's silly. And it's practically at eye level. You can just peer right into the nest and the baby birds are right there, maybe a hand's width away from you. It's amazing. I don't think I'd ever been that close to wild baby birds. Even the goslings kept more distance.
Cedar waxwing babies are adorable. They've got the little headcrest that the adults have, and their plumage is still fluffy but starting to get adult colors. Yeah, they're just cute. And so close! You literally just look at them, and they're right in front of you.
But there is a price to pay for this amazing encounter. The mosquitos in the Sanctuary are in full bloom, and they are hungry. And they feasted upon me. Both of my lower legs are completely bitten up, and the itch is immense. I am in a world of itchfulness. I find that a liberal application of witch hazel, followed by healthy amounts of Cortaid, is instrumental in controlling this extreme itchiness. But I'm pretty well bitten up. Catdamned mosquitos, sucking my lifeblood. I've probably got west nile now.
i am a lady. only the mosquito gals want to be bitin' yo' ass.
To amuse myself, I made a couple of tshirts. They actually came out somewhat better than I thought they would, considering the fact that I was only using cheap-o fabric markers. One's got the Michigan Wolverine on it, and the other is a Swampscott Sculpins design. This last is a joke which only I will get once I am at college. Thusly, I will be amused by it.
I recently acquired a magical file portfolio thing from Staples. Using this, I managed to organize every single paper I have pertaining to my comic book stuff. I used to have enormous files of stuff, just overflowing everywhichway and left all over my floor. Now I've got it pared down and all sorted out real neat-like in this folder thing. It's unbelievable. I did not believe it until I saw it, and even then I was skeptical. Organization is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Tonight I saw Jackie Brown with Jess, Maddie, Corey and Dave. Good times. It was a pretty good movie, but a bit too long. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for something lengthy, but it seemed to drag at points. Still, good stuff. The characters were just insane enough to be awesome. The dialogue was both classy and memorable, with such excellent lines as, "Straighten up, bitch." and "Louis, what happened to you, man? Your ass used to be beautiful."
Samuel L. Jackson was creepy beyond creepiness... it's surprising how sketchy bad hair can make someone. Robert DeNiro was some kind of mentally deficient person... I don't know, it didn't really seem like he had all that much acting to do. He just sort of sat about looking confused and mildly displaced. And I forget who else was in it.
Jackie Brown. Two and a Half Paws Up. In my opinion. Which, being mine, is the right one.
New game for you! It's Butch Mushroom. You're a mushroom. You hit the arrow keys rapidly and more or less randomly. You eat bugs. Then you burp and maybe vomit a little, because let's be honest here, what the heck is a mushroom doing eating bugs? But it's a great game, it grows on you like a fungus. Play and be filled with a disturbing yet deep sense of gratification.
And you should probably take a look at this little animation about architecture for the new millenium. It's absolutely retarded yet entirely glorious. I can't tell what city that is, though. The music is very soothing. And if you watch it for a bit after it's over, the Platitudipus really does display a variety of soothing platitudes to the public. Yeah, just go watch it.
People have started leaving for college. All the Syracuse kids are gone, both the Drummonds have flown the coop. I'm here until bright and early Wednesday morning, when the sojourn (i.e. long car drive) begins. Annoying as that drive will be, I do not envy my dad the drive back home, during which my mother will probably be inconsolable.
But in any event. Wednesday I am gone. So be sure to pay your respects before then.
Keep an eye on your email, you damnfools. Be wary and intelligent. And wear bug spray.
1:21 AM
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
And return I have!
I am back from my sojourn on the Cape, and was it ever good times! It's supposed to be about a two hour drive from my house to the house we stay at on the Cape, give or take a little. I'm not certain how long a drive it was on the way there, but it was most assuredly a good sight longer than two hours. This was due to the massively gridlocked traffic which greeted us as we attempted to reach our goal.
But we are not a family to be deterred! The fact that the road we were on only went in one direction did not influence us in the slightest. No sirree. We would have trucked on irregardless.
Eventually we got there. It's a very nice house, almost a pruriently nice house. Directly on the water (we're talking a 'private beach' type of 'on the water'), and a lovely place even without the opportune property placement. Thusly, we spent much of our time on the Cape sitting around. Out on the deck, inside with the doors open for the sea breeze, etc. I read four books, started a new comic, and did two fairly involved 'real' sketches (one in pastels, and therefore bad. the other one's ink and came out tolerably).
For dinner that first night (Friday) we went to this restaurant called Lucious Louie's which my father, for unfathomable reasons of his own, calls Lucious Lips. He calls it this every single time we drive past it, without fail, which drives my brother completely conkers and, therefore, amuses me. The food's pretty good, but we had to wait for*freaking*ever before we got seated.
So I mucked about with my cell phone. It turns out that I can check my email from my phone. Presumably I can respond to it too, but I didn't bother. It is very hard to type things out on a phone keypad. I discovered this because I went onto AIM with the phone and tried to have conversations with Jess, Corey and Kate simultaneously. Didn't work particularly well, and my loverly language and mannerisms were all shot to hell by the necessity of shorthanding it.
Ugh. It pains me to speak like an illiterate, because I know that I get extremely fed up extremely quickly with people who pepper their IMs with such ridiculousness. It's one thing to abbreviate (S'scott instead of Swampscott, and the like), and it's one thing to twist english to your own evil uses if that's your mode of speech (thusly, somesuchathing, and the like). But it is quite another to consistently use '2' for 'to' or 'too', to say things like 'wz^? s.o.s.h', or, perhaps most heinously of all, to use such phrases as 'i h8 u', 'sk8r boi' in seriousness. If you are not using these phrases with the express purpose of mocking them, you deserve to be taken out back and shot repeatedly.
And then your bullet-riddled corpse should be boiled. And then fed to ravening sharks. And then the sharks should be cut into little pieces, and people should take the pieces and burn them. And then jump on the ashes. And then maybe shoot whatever's left, just to make sure the point is well taken.
But! I digress.
The next night was my parents' anniversary (23rd, I think), so we had a fancy dinner. Chillingsworth's, you know. Exceedingly fancy, exceedingly delicious. Ridiculous number of courses. Very small but very flavorful portions. That sort of a restaurant. Anyways, it was a very nice dinner, very pleasing to my palate. But I had to dress nicely, which is always a shame.
'Course, I hadn't brought any particular accessories or anysuchthing, so I just wore the same necklace I always do. Alas, my mother called me on this.
Mom: You really broke out the fancy jewelry for this, huh?
Me: Um. Er. It's my necklace.
Mom: It's a headband.
Me: But I like to wear it as a necklace.
And it is, in fact, a headband. At least, that is it's intended purpose. But I like to wear it as a necklace. It's like a black choker thing, only, being a headband in all technical ways, it's much more comfortable to wear. And we all know my first rule of wearing-clothing: Comfortableness. Right-o.
That night there was the most impressive electrical storm I have ever seen. It started around 11:00, 11:30, and continued until well past 1:30, by my account. Usually, in the height of a lightening storm, you get flashes of lightening and cracks of thunder maybe once a minute. And usually you don't even see the actual fork of lightening itself, you just see the flash.
This was continuous lightening, every second, during the hours mentioned above. Continuous. Flash flash flash flash flash. Continuous rumble of lightening, with crackles whenever something hit particularly close to shore. The forks of lightening were ridiculously visible. For someone with a fear of thunder storms, this would have been the one that left them crouching under the bed, clutching a blanket around their head, rocking back and forth, murmuring wildly to themselves about penguins with fedoras on.
Personally, I felt like applauding. I mean, Someone, Somewhere, was putting on one hell of a show, and it seemed only appropriate.
nature's own magnificent bug zapper
The next morning was suitably cooler, and it rained fitfully all day. We were supposed to go on a Seal and Bird Watching boat tour, and we got as far as sitting on the boat, but it was not to be. The captain of this worthy vessel was on the radio with some of his colleagues, debating whether or not the weather called for a cancelation. The woman he was speaking with over the radio said that the Coast Guard had called in to say that there was a 'massive' system moving towards us, and that Bourne had been 'smashed' by it, and that she couldn't remember a time in the past when the Coast Guard had called them, so the situation must be absolutely grave.
On this recommendation, the trip was called. Everyone went back to the little office thing to get refunds. The family ahead of us asked the woman if they should go into Chatham, to see what there was to see, but she told them in no uncertain terms that that was in the path of the storm, and that they would do much better to go straight back to their hotel and stay put. Evidently, the Storm of the Century was tearing that end of the Cape to little tiny bits, and it would better to stay out of the way.
My family had a craving for fudge, and my mother had a thought that the nearest fudgerie was in Chatham. Storms be damned! We wanted fudge! We would not be gainsaid! Not even by the evil weather gods and their determination to wipe Cape Cod off the map! No family of cowards, we. When we get on the scent of fudge, it would take more than a mere earthly atmospheric disturbance to turn us away.
We went to Chatham, where it was quite crowded and the fudge was quite good. The sky did nothing more than look sullen and spittle a minute bit. Chatham, it transpired, was utterly free of anything even remotely resembling storminess. Presumably Bourne also survived their brutal battering at the hands of a few fitful drizzles.
Then it was Monday and we drove home.
That hardly seems to cover the time we spent there, but, as I said, there was a lot of sitting about and reading/drawing/getting mildly sunburned going on. There was also a good deal of eating in, and eating out, and going out to get food to eat in. A good trip, by all accounts.
Tonight I went to see SWAT with Jess. There's not too much that can be said about it. It is exactly what you would think it would be; that is, it's an action movie with little plot (and the little that exists is utterly unimportant and probably should be ignored). No one, however, would go to see this movie for the plot. You go to see it because it's a fun movie where things and people get shot at and usually shot up. It's a fun movie where people use silly dialogue that's so bad it makes you giggle. It's a fun movie where LL Cool J takes his shirt off, and it's a fun movie with a lot of Colin Farrell in it, and this is a Good Thing.
A good movie to see, in short, if you like to see Colin Farrell, or Big Guns and Things Exploding, or if you like to see both. Appeals to both the ladies and the gentlemen that way, see. It's a movie you don't have to think about at all to see, and, quite frankly, it's probably much better if you don't think at all while you're watching it.
Just sit back, watch things explode or get shot, watch Colin being his very attractive self. This is all that you need to do.
For actual movie merits, this would get maybe Two Paws up, probably more like One or One and A Couple of Claws but Not All the Claws on the Paw. For sheer, mindless entertainment value, it's going to get Three Paws up. Don't go into it expecting a cinematic masterpiece, but go if you're in the mood to be simply and uncomplicatedly entertained.
Things Which Are Good About Going to College So Very Soon:
-University of Michigan football games
-new levels of sweatpant/tshirt-wearing joy
-meeting lots of people whom I have *not* known for at least six years. So fresh and new and whatnot. These people have no preconceptions, other than what they will undoubtedly immediately think when they see the hair
-getting new Mac laptop computer (this one has me obscenely excited)
Things Which Are Bad About Going to College So Very Soon:
-having to use communal bathrooms
-chemistry classes
-leaving the crowd of people whom I have known for at least six years and usually more. What if no one gets my humor there? Who will be sarcastic with me at movies and with regards to passerby and life in general?
-having to share my stereo
There's more of each, but those are the salient points as they stand right now.
I am off to bed like an evilly hitchhiking, trespassing, overly aggressive zebra mussel.
I dare you to get that joke.
1:35 AM
Friday, August 15, 2003
Just thought I'd do a short little post today.
Tomorrow morning I am heading out to the Cape for a few days. Family time, you know. It should be fun and I will undoubtedly have something interesting to blog when we get back, unless it rains the entire time. Then I will only blog complaints.
Not much went on today. I slept in fairly late (surprise surprise!). Then Noah had me read a short story he had written and I critiqued it. I'm afraid I was rather harsher on this than I usually am on his screenplays. Sometimes I get in a very critique-ful mood, and this was one of those times. I hope his little heart wasn't torn asunder by my cruel comments.
Then I did a crazily involved pen and ink doodle of Kim Novak holding a siamese cat named Pyewacket. From the movie Bell, Book and Candle. I don't know, I saw a photo and it made me all inspired and whatnot. I've never seen the movie, though, and now I kind of want to see it.
This isn't the picture that got me going, but there's Kim Novak, and there's Pyewacket. And there's some fellow looking startled.
Tonight I went to get ice cream at Richardson's with Jess and Jason. Fun times. It was actually really nice out, warm without being humid. And since, being nighttime, there was no sun, it wasn't oppressively hot. We had to leave after a bit, though, because the mosquitos were consuming our flesh, and we objected to that.
Then we went to Jason's house. We were just going to sit there and chat as we generally do, but Jason's father and sister were trying to see some subtle differences in the colors of these wig things, but they didn't have any dummies to try them out on. So Jess and I were wig dummies for the night. They're called cheerleading curls, or somesuchathing... they're like little curly wigs that you put over a bun to make it look like you have a curly bun. It was pretty funny. Jason took pictures with my camera, so those should make some good photos.
Speaking of which, I got the New York pictures back, as well as some other things. They came out pretty well. The ones I took at the concert with the disposable camera were very blah. I hate 200 speed film. Never again. I need my 400 speed. It's the only way to go.
Alrighty, I am going to go pack so that I may awaken at a reasonable hour, and thusly depart at a reasonable hour. I'll blog upon my return.
Night all.
12:44 AM
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Still working on finding a photo site for the art gallery, although I'll admit that I've been doing so rather half-arsedly lately. I've other things to do. Such as packing towels and the like into big cardboard boxes, and worrying my little mind over what will be leaving my current abode later this month, and other such goodness.
The fact that I can't bring all of my books is causing me no end of mental anguish. Well, obviously I couldn't bring all of them, since I have an unreasonably large number (picture an entire wall of my room, plus various piles on the floor), but surely I could bring the ones I am most likely to reread over and over again. Like the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series, and Ender's Game, and all those Dumas books, and maybe a couple of Heinleins, and Catch 22 (which I read at least twice a year, and usually more often), and the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, and my Sherlock Holmes anthologies (painfully addictive), and Corelli's Mandolin (which was such a good book and such a bad movie that the two media are almost ridiculous in their disparity of quality).
I should have underlined all of those titles, but I'm far too Slothful to type in all the little html tags necessary for that.
So. Went to New York this weekend. With Jess and Steph. To visit Leslie. The train ride out there was pretty good, we managed to get one of those little end things where there are 4 seats facing each other. We got bagelish goodness from Au Bon Pain beforehand, and I had an Asiago cheese bagel, which was surprisingly good. All soft and cheesy and whatnot.
The people sitting next to us on the train had two little girls, and they were going all the way down to DC. I did not envy them their journey. We, of course, were speaking loudly and animatedly on various subjects during the trip, but they seemed more mildly amused by this than annoyed. Which, you know, is nice. Anyways, about one or two stops before we were getting off (so we'd already been on the train for upwards of three hours at this point), the father sort of looks over at us and says, "So, I heard you're going to Michigan?"
Um. Yeah. "Big school, huh?" Yeah, it is. "So you ladies heading into New York?" Yeeaahhh... "Going into the city?" Um, we're visiting a friend. "Ah. And of course you won't be staying up late." Uh, no, of course not. Do we ever? Ha ha ha. Then he went back to sleep. Vurry strange.
Then we got to Leslie's house, after getting sort of lost in Stamford (I think) and having to ask directions at a convenience store. Which made Stephanie very uncomfortable, even though it was high noon and a public place. Although, to give her a little credit, we had just passed a town sign (you know, like parking hour notices) which read:
Drug dealers!
You will be prosecuted for dealing here!
Etc. etc.
Yeah, it was a bit strange to see. Not something we have here in good ol' S'scott. *shrugs*
We met lots of Leslie's friends, and reached the opinion that they are Cool Personages. We met Andy, her main squeeze, who is a male of the particularly attractive variety. He was also an eminently nice guy, and he was exceedingly considerate of us po' li'l outsiders. For instance, we were hanging out at a house with a bunch of people none of us knew, and Leslie had to go to someone's house to get something, and he had to go outside for something, but he stayed inside with us until Leslie got back so we wouldn't be all abandoned and whatnot. Right decent of him, it was.
We also met her buddy Natalia, who was very cool and seemed amused by my sarcasm which was, perhaps unfortunately, in rather rare form while we were there. We met Andy G., who was not Leslie's fella, but another gentleman of the name Andy. He was humorous and told stories very well. We met Nicole, who is going to Cornell and is therefore WoahSmart in my books. She was nice. We met Parjay (I butchered the spelling, but I haven't a clue) who was very funny and tolerant of Stephanie when Stephanie got going. Which she did.
But that's sort of another story, and probably one which shouldn't be related over the Internet.
I think we met some other people, but those are the ones I can recall. I've got a mind like swiss cheese, and I know it.
So the first night we all hung about at this other girl's house (Sarah something or other). At one point during the night, Sarah's evil crony-girl Lucy locked the fridge. It was strange and uncouth yet amusing. I mean, who locks the fridge? It's not even as though people were raiding it. I think someone took a can of soda out. Ooo, such evilness. But this girl breezed in, scolding left and right, and locked the fridge. Everyone reacted to this with two parts shock and one part hilarity.
There was music, and people were forced to dance the Cotton Eyed Joe, which I hadn't seen done since the last Bat/Bar Mitzvah I went to. It was frenzied. Um, then people had really serious but really, really loud conversations, and other such strangeness ensued.
We ended up staying awake until around 4:30 or 5 am, which made it a good 22-23 hours awake for me. It was an especially interesting evening, and all sorts of things both glorious and hideous occurred, and I had to be all responsible and whatnot. Over and over again. Thank cats Jess has got a level head on her shoulders even in the face of such insanity. Right-o. I think you should ask one of the participants in person if you want more detail, it's not exactly blog material.
Next day we went into the city. It was vurry vurry hot, but we managed to have good times. We went into the Village and checked out the neato little shops. Then we went into Soho and did the same. We walked past a Thai restaurant and I saw a cat in the window! I made us stop in front of the window so that we could stare at the cat and commune properly with it. It was a very nice little brindled tabby sort of cat, and it would rub the window when I put my hand up to it. Yeah. Cats rock.
Then we had dinner at the Olive Garden, because Stephanie absolutely insisted that we do so. The wait wasn't too bad, for Times Square. Walking to the restaurant was beastly, however, because it was already hot and muggy out, and there were twenty billion people milling about in the streets. Ugh. Not my cup o' coffee. But the dinner was good.
Then we went back to Leslie's town and stood around with some of her friends, trying to think of something to do. Eerily familiar, it was. When it comes to suburbia, I guess things really are the same all over. Then we went back to Leslie's house and had snackage, because we had had an early dinner, and it was about six hours later. Then blessed sleep. Leslie's house is very nice to sleep in, because they keep it deliciously cool. Jess and Steph seemed to think it was a little too cold, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Then we came home. The traffic was horrendous, and we very nearly missed our train, which certainly got the ol' adrenaline pumpin'. Then the only place we could find three seats mostly together was all the way in the front of the train, in the 'Quiet Car'. No cell phones, no loud noises, no prolonged conversations. Jess and Steph ended up sleeping. I finished reading Oliver Twist. Good stuff, that. Dickens is so much more fun to read on your own, as opposed to reading it in class.
My family went to the Lowell Spinners game that night.
that's them. you know, lowell, spinners, textile mills, all that historical jazz
I like the Spinners games, it's very informal baseball, and I can doodle all I wish. They were giving out free visors that night. Which turned out to be a good thing, because soon after we got there the skies opened up and an absolute deluge of rain came down. The visor kept the rain off of my glasses, which was nice.
So, we had ballpark food, and we stood around to see if the rain would stop. After a bit they called the game, not because of the rain, but because the tarp had gotten stuck and they hadn't been able to get it over the field. Thusly leaving things in a rather muddy way. We took a peek before we left, and the dugouts were literally underwater. Anyone in them would have drowned. It was funny, 'leastaways, to me it was.
But I got a nice free visor out of it!
Today I did absolutely nothing but sleep, which was good because cat knows I needed it. And I started listing up the personal effects which I wish to take with me to Michigan. Relatively speaking, there's actually not that much. Mostly artsy things, like my art markers, a couple of sketchbooks, a lap desk, and the like. Fun-ness.
And that is that.
12:25 AM
Friday, August 08, 2003
I am listening to strange things online with my brand new fancy-shmancy headphones, specially purchased for college, so that I may listen to my often bizarre music without arousing the ire of my roommate.
Whom I met tonight. Well, I spoke with her on the phone. Alas, all who know me will attest to my fiery hatred of that particular implement of communication, so I may not have been as comfortable speaking, via phone, as I would be otherwise. But it was nice that she called me, since I hate the phone so very much that I probably would not have called her up of my own volition.
Her name is Brynn. She's from California. She's also Jewish, which is A Good Thing. At least, I assume she's Jewish, since she went to a private hebrew high school, but I suppose that technically she might not be. But I think that she is. My grandmother will be filled with happiness if she is.
She has two siblings, an English Springer Spaniel, and a Dell laptop, but she wanted to get a Mac. So take that, Jason! We all know my computer credo by now, there is no god but our Mac, etc. etc.
Other than this I am going to reserve judgement about her, since I've only ever spoken with her once, and that was on the hated phone. I say to myself, "Feline Anarchist, you will not be able to make an accurate assessment of this person until you meet her face to face and spend a little time with her. Then you can be as judgemental as you please/normally are."
That said, I intend to go easy on her with my usual evilly-and-extremely-judgemental nature, because I am heading off to college fully aware that I am what some people would consider their worst roommating nightmare. No, I am most definitely not the easiest person to cohabitate with. Part of this, of course, is the fact that I'm not one of those people who eagerly look forward to the part of the 'college experience' where they get to live in the same room with another person. Or several other persons. No, I could live my life in complete contentment if I had a single for a dormroom. Heck, I applied for a single. I knew I wouldn't get one, being a wittle froshie and all, but I thought it was worth a shot.
That said, I'm extremely glad that I got a double, and not a triple or, cat forbid, a quad. I am pleasantly resigned to living with someone else, at least for my freshman year, and I'm prepared to like the girl and even, *gasp gasp!*, maybe have a good time.
But like I said, I'm not the best person to live with. It's sort of hard to explain. If you're a local and you know me, you know what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about watching the Jeff Corwin show on Animal Planet because he's hot. And rooting for silly football teams like the Lions and the Dolphins. And being oddly surly and uncommunicative at random, unpredictable times. And crinkling the pages of my books when I read. And listening to my crazed music that you've probably never heard of (unless, of course, you clickee the links conveniently provided under the Music section on the side).
And the large XFiles poster I am obviously bringing to hang in my dormroom. And furtively sketching you when I think you're not looking. And going online at all sorts of ungodly hours of the night and early morning. And liking to go birding. And ranting loudly if someone suggests that any computer is better than a Mac.
I'm talking about drawing comic books because they're fun to do.
Yeah, most people out there who are reading this are thinking, "Holy cats, I would not want this girl for my roommate (and if I am a fellow, I would not want her male counterpart). No sir. Most assuredly not."
They are perhaps not thinking it in those exact words, but the implication is all the same.
Ah, college. Things to look forward to. On to more immediate matters.
You people who keep emailing me about the online art gallery! You people who continue to email me despite the fact that I addressed this in the July 31st blog! Crikey. I didn't realize there was this sort of demand. How about we say that you people don't email me anymore on this particular point, unless you've got a link for a free photo hosting site I can use. Think you can handle that?
But since the demand has been so very high, I scanned a little sumpin here special for you, my loyal and dedicated readers. And determined. Very, very, almost frighteningly determined readers. But not local. None of the emails are from locals. Still haven't figured this one out, I'm pretty damn sure everyone in jolly ol' S'scott has my email address (posted over on yonder sidebar <--), and I know that some of them read this here turkey, but they never take up the causes the way you nonlocal readers do.
Anyways.
this is how i say to the world: "i am a complete and utter dork"
then the world says to me: "no shit, mycroft"
then i cry because i am the only one who got that joke
Yes. I. Am. A. Dork. But I just can't get over it. I mean, his name's Wolverine. His costume colors are blue and yellow. U. of M. are the Wolverines. The school colors are blue and yellow. It's just too damn perfect for me to ignore. So I don't ignore it. I don't ignore it in heinously geeky ways like this.
I'd also just like to say that the colors weren't that screwy in the original, but it scanned in all funky and whatnot, and I was too lazy to futz with it much in Photoshop. The colors are actually pretty good on the original, but my scanner doesn't like markers. At all.
I think if I had put a white piece of paper behind it, it would've scanned fine. Alas, what's done is done.
This is looking to be a rather long blog, but you are loving it. And I, in turn, am feeling the love.
I added a couple of new things to the 'See Before You Die or You Will Never Rest in Peace' section over on the side. They were already posted herein, but if you haven't seen them yet, you need to. Right now. Along with everything else already posted in that section. If you don't visit any other site that's listed on the side (and I list only the finest quality, excellent websites), you must at the very least visit those sites which I have specially set aside as 'necessary for leading a fulfilled existence'.
Both the new linkees are by the incomparable Joel Veitch. The first is, of course, that most excellent 'If Destiny's Child were kittens from Northern England, this is exactly what they would sound like' animation. Most of you have already seen this, and you're 28 types of fool if you haven't.
The other is the Spongmonkeys singing 'We Like the Moon' animation, which is altogether more disturbing. It also caters to a different sort of taste. Any but the densest of clods can enjoy the Destiny's Child Kittens song, but it takes a special sort of maniac to truly appreciate the Spongmonkeys. Fortunately for you, cher reader, I am that special sort of maniac. Thusly are you entertained.
Not up on the side, but here in the body of this here blog, is Joel Veitch's brand-spankin'-new tuneful animation, Red Panda's ballad to his girlfriend, Hippo Girl. It's somewhere between the Kittens and the Spongmonkeys on the Disturbing Scale. It's much more soothing-sounding than the Spongmonkeys, but some of the lyrics are a little... yeah.
Anyways, it made me giggle manically. Or maybe it was snickering. Anyways, I was reacting with some sort of amusement. Just go see it.
The other night me, Jess, Jason and Corey had dinner at Monte's. I had black olive pizza. It was delectable. Their house salad dressing is a secret legend because it is so very ambrosial.
Then we watched To Die For, with Nicole Kidman. In the movie, I mean. She wasn't watching the movie with us. Anywho, I really liked it. It was very funny in a slightly sick and certainly dark sort of way. And Nicole Kidman is nuts, yet a good actress. The funeral scene was great. I loved the sister. Er... let's say... Three Paws Up. Corey enjoyed it as well, but Jess fell asleep and Jason spent most of it tinkering with his laptop, so I suppose it's not a film for everyone.
Then we played Balderdash. Yes. A board game. Yes, we did. And yes, we played it for quite some time. It was actually much fun, because the game consists of someone reading out a word, and everyone has to guess at the definition of it. Or make it up, if they don't know. And then people have to guess what's the right definition.
I don't know if that made any sense, but it's a really good game if you have people who can make up crazy yet plausible definitions. We had those people. Much laughter, mostly on my part, since I was reading the words and I got to see what definitions people were writing. I tried to pick words that I thought people had some chance of knowing, but evidently I was mistaken.
To try your hand at it, here are some of the words we really used.
-ewer
-heliolater
-flapdragon
...and this was the one that made me angry when no one knew it...
-cerulean
Definitions and commentary at the bottom of the blog. Go ahead, write down what you think they mean. Make it up if you don't know. Don't cheat, you horrible, cheating-type person.
Today I went into Boston. I saw a bull mastiff that was, by far, the largest dog I have ever seen. It was bigger than that dog in Newburyport (far previous blog, which you probably can't see because my archives still don't work). Massive hunk o' dog.
I also ate dinner in Fanuel Hall, sharing a table with three French women. I could understand what they were saying when I was listening attentively. I was rendered happy by this.
I know there was sort of a longish break between this and the last blog, but that's just because I'm lazy. There's going to be a bit of a break between this and the next blog, but that's for a Good Reason. See, I'm going to be out-o-state with some friends of mine, visiting the inimitable Leslie at her current residence in New Yawk, to put it Bostonily. I will undoubtedly have much to blog when I get back from this sojourn. But I shan't blog during.
Shan't, I say.
You know, I never mean to stay up this late. I just can't help it. There's so much to do online, and I just get caught up in the whirlwind of Internet fun. Or I write ridiculously long blogs, like this one so evidently is.
Actually, this is one of the longest blogs I've written in a very long time.
Definitions and commentary! You best not be cheatin'.
-ewer: a pitcher or jug with a flaring spout
comments: no reason why i knew this one. i just did. so i expected everyone else to. foolishness.
-heliolater: a sun worshipper
comments: i didn't know this one, but i did know that 'helio' means sun, so i figured that people would at least be able to make close guesses. more wrongness on my part. jason and corey thought it had to do with helium and balloons, and jess said something about a lamp base.
-flapdragon: a game in which players catch raisins soaked in burning brandy and swallow them
comments: i knew that a 'snapdragon' was a raisin soaked in burning brandy, so i was thinking that maybe people would get that the two words were connected. a couple of people got that the two words were related, but none of them knew what a snapdragon was, other than the flower of the same name. *sigh*
-cerulean: azure or sky blue
comments: blue! it means 'blue', people! i've known this word since 5th or 6th grade! possibly before! the others i could understand. but for cat's sake! blue! no one got it. i was filled with shame.
Hope you got at least one of them.
Good Night/Early Morning.
2:27 AM
Sunday, August 03, 2003
I was going to update the nosepilot link, because it's moved around so much in the past couple of years that I've lost track of it, but I can't find it. So that's a broken link down thar. Sorry. Maybe I'll search for it later, but cat only knows.
Heinous news! Return to Sender is... is... *sniff*... is... *sniffle*... going on permanent hiatus! *begins wailing* Why even bother going online on Sundays anymore? This is terrible. Terribleness incarnate. I swear, if Strings of Fate goes on hiatus, I may have to give up the Internet forever and become some sort of luddite monk.
My old french teacher (Mme. McNeill) used to tell us that she was a luddite... she was also a french native, so she said everything with a very thick little old lady french accent, which somehow made her saying, "I am such a luddite" infinitely amusing.
Just a little interlude, that.
Nothing much happened today (that is, Saturday... once again, I've stayed up over the dayline known as midnight... actually, I can't remember the last time I went to bed before midnight... but that's neither here nor there nor anywhichwhere). Did some drawing, but wasn't very pleased with it. I'm hitting some snags on the character designs. See, there are 11 that I designed eons ago and therefore am very familiar with, and I've got all of those done. So now I'm starting in on the 40-some-odd others that I've had sitting around for a while but haven't worked with quite as much. And I'm not liking the way they're coming out.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure no one wants to hear about this stuff. But you know what? This is my blog. I will write about whatever I damn well please. And if I want to write about my tendency to dorkily angst over comic book character designs, then gosh darn it, I'm gonna write about dorky angsting over comic book character designs.
I stick out my tongue in your general direction. *pbththththth*
Um... what else did I do today? I worked on my top-secret present for my parent's anniversary. Hopefully they'll like it. I'm workin' like a house elf at it. On it. Damn prepositions.
Then I drove into Salem to meet the family for dinner, and no one died. Because of my driving, I mean. I'm sure that plenty of old people and sick people and hopefully some evil people died today, but no one died as a direct result of my driving. That's good enough for me. Can't worry about what you can't control, non?
Hey, did everyone hear about that woman who gave birth on the T? Yup, it was in the paper. I'd find the link but it was a few days ago. The gist of it was that people were standing on the T (the red line) when they suddenly heard this woman moan sort of quietly. Then she gave birth. Standing up. Holding onto the T railing. People were yelling and vomiting (there was a lot of blood) and frantically offering to let this woman sit down. But she just kept on standing there calmly.
The baby just fell right out of the bottom of her skirt, hit the floor, and slid down along the T doors until it came up against some seats and stopped. She scooped it up, wrapped it in her scarf, and went right on standing there, holding the railing with one hand and the baby with the other. Still standing up. People were still loudly and often offering her assistance, but she just kept on saying, "No thank you, we're OK."
Eventually she got off the train. Someone (probably many people) had called 911 and the cops, so they were waiting when the T stopped. The woman with the baby just got off, grabbed a newspaper to wrap the baby in, and started to head outside. Then (this is my favorite bit), she passes the placenta, or gives birth to it, or whatever the hell you do to the placenta. According to the policeman who saw it, she passes the placenta, and in mid-stride bends down, picks it up, tosses it into her handbag, and continues towards the exit.
Eventually the police came out of shock and caught her up outside and took the baby somewhere safe while the woman gets psychiatric evaluations.
But holy freaking cats. Can you even imagine seeing something like that on the subway? I mean, it must have been absolutely horrifying and absolutely incredible at once. Damn. How come things like that don't happen on the green or blue lines?
the red line, now a mobile maternity ward for the mentally unstable
If you are liking to look at good art things on occasion, you should be regarding the Pants Press Sketchblog. The people who do Return to Sender and Strings of Fate and other goodly folks post thereon. I like to look at it, it makes me sad that I can't draw, but at the same time it's pleasant to look at the stuff of people who can. Draw, that is.
Curses to the tropics!
Just felt like reiterating that point, as Jess went and got me all thinking about how much I hate hot weather and whatnot. Blasted places, where it's warm all the time. Breeding grounds for plague and ague, I tell you, plague and ague!
Corey hasn't posted in a while. I know he was away, but now he's back, and this is Not Acceptable Behavior. I think we should corner him on his manic little island and beat him with croquet mallets until he posts. I do not deal well with unfinished stories.
I like the idea of using something so civilized/British as a croquet mallet to do something so uncivilized as beat someone about the head for riling you in some minor sense. In some deeply fundamental way, it's just... right.
And on that note, I bid you all a Goodly Eve.
1:04 AM
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