Thursday, February 26, 2004
I haven't blogged in a bit, I know, I know. I've been so busy doing absolutely nothing during spring break that I just haven't had the initiative to blog. I humbly apologize to you, dear reader.
If you are unaware, a blog meme is a list or something that goes around bloggers and gets posted on everyone's blogs. They're usually heinous, annoying, and good filler for people who can't think of anything to write. I have scrupulously avoided them, so if you're not a blogger yourself and get all your blogging news from there here turkey you might not even be aware of this unfortunate phenomenon. But today blogging giant ScaryDuck used one, so I figure I'm allowed to do so. The meme is 'Set your media player to random and list the first ten songs that come up'. Here you are, then.
1. Living-room, Paris Combo
2. City, Mighty Mighty Bosstones
3. Two Points for Honesty, Guster
4. Rikki Don't Lose that Number, Steely Dan
5. Angel of the North, Tinstar
6. Desensitized, Mighty Mighty Bosstones
7. Everything Hits at Once, Spoon
8. Ren? Bouteille, La Tordue
9. Aspects of Spirit, the Levellers
10. Bohemian Like You, the Dandy Warhols
Now if that ain't some Mighty Fine Music, I don't know what is.
We had our debate in bio discussion. It was beautiful. The subject was Global Warming and the Kyoto Treaty. The teams were Greenpeace, Concerned Scientists, Skeptical Scientists, and Industry, with loose alliances between Greenpeace/Concerned Scientists and Industry/Skeptical Scientists.
I ended up being the head of Industry, since I had done the most research and was clearly the most rabidly excited about the whole thing. During the debate it quickly became evident that the two most vocal people in the room were me and the kid heading up the Skeptical Scientists. After the debate it came out that I had been in Mock Trial in high school (which definitely does prepare you for high octane debates, especially if you were a witness or a cross examination attorney) and that the other kid had been in Model UN. Ironically, in a class of mostly upperclassmen, the two of us are both freshmen.
In any event, between the two of us, we absolutely tore apart Greenpeace and the Concerned Scientists. Every time they tried to bring out a fact, one or the other or both us would refute it. Loudly. With lots and lots of evidence, from lots and lots of reliable sources. Our job was to convince our GSI (graduate student instructor, for those of you who don't go to Michigan) of our side. We had an uphill battle, because she was obviously prejudiced in favor of Greenpeace/Concerned Scientists before the debate even started. But we had so much information, and the people in our opposing groups were so unprepared for it, by the end of the class she admitted that, against her own will, she found herself siding with us.
IT FRELLING ROCKED. I was on a hyper adrenaline rush for the rest of the day because of it. It's been a while since my last Mock Trial meet, and I'd almost forgotten what a kick it was. Cripes, maybe I should give up on this whole art and zoology thing and just become a lawyer. Ha. God forbid I should ever do something that has a chance of making me money.
I'm sure there's more from before I left for break, but I'll be damned if I can remember any of it now.
As I said in the previous entry, the two big events before heading home were the Pistons game and the Envelope show. The show was a very good time, as detailed previously. I think I more or less covered everything I wanted to. I think I also covered the Pistons game, except to note that some of the signs were very clever. The big player on the Pistons is Ben Wallace (he has an enormous 'fro, so many people in the crowd were wearing fake 'fros). He's known as Big Ben, and every time he did something good the Palace sound system played a noise like the bonging of the Big Ben clock. There was a sheet-sized sign reading "Wallace squared= exponential horsepower". Because, you know, the Pistons symbol is a horse. There's also a player named Okur Mehmet, so there was a sign reading "Wait a Mehmet, a miracle will Okur". Durr hurr! Those crrrrrazy Detroit fans.
For those of you who follow basketball, this was the game where the Pistons accidentally played Rasheed Wallace and Mike James before the trade had been finalized, causing them to later get fined a great deal of money. Oops.
Another player who interested me was Darko Milicic, and not just because his name makes me immediately think of Donnie Darko. Darko's my age, and in the NBA, for cat's sake. Whoever heard of such insanity? And, if I dare say it, he's kind of cute.
this is a basketball player? blimey, maybe i should watch more basketball.
Since I've been home it's been a whole lot of sitting around and not doing homework. I did exactly one drawing that I was supposed to do, and none of the reading I should have done. Oh well. We also have a project due the Monday we get back for CFC, but I honestly don't know how she would expect me to do that at home. It's supposed to be a model, for cat's sake. How on earth would she expect me to get it onto the plane and back to Michigan? I see no way to do so. Looks like that's something that will get done hastily on Sunday night. But not out of procrastination, mind you. Out of necessity.
My computer is now super magically enabled. My mother decided it would be a good idea to get Airport, the wireless internet option for Macs, so that I could use my laptop when I was home. My laptop has an internal Airport card, but the desktop and my brother's laptop both needed Airport cards. Because they're both older computers, they also needed an OS update to be able to run Airport.
So not only is my computer now on wireless cable internet at home, it's on Panther! The newest Mac OS! It's quite spiffy. And I got it 100% legitimately, unlike you thieving hoardes out there (*cough*Chris*cough*).
Tuesday morning I went birding with my mother. We were trying to find eagles. We saw no eagles, alas, but we saw tons of other stuff. At the Chain Bridge in (I think) Rowley we saw a red tailed hawk and a very out-of-season great blue heron. Up on Plum Island we saw a merlin, a female harrier hawk, another red tail, and what my mother claims was a kestrel. I think otherwise. It looked too big and too dark to be a kestrel from what I saw. Whatever it was, it flew directly in front of our car and scared the kitty litter out of us. A supremely excellent birding day.
On the way back from birding we stopped at a little farm. They had a paddock containing a llama and a buffalo. Why any farm in Massachusetts would have a llama or a buffalo is beyond my ability to comprehend, and why these two animals would be living together is even more incomprehensible. I took some pictures of the insanity, and then we went on our merry way.
On Tuesday night I hung around with Corey. We ended up just getting hot chocolate and sitting in Dunkin Donuts chatting for a while, because nothing else around here is open late. It is always good fun sitting at the big bay window in the front of the Dunkin Donuts, because you can watch the creepy and amusing people pull up in their cars. We got a carful of young ladies who clearly were too sleazy for Starbucks, and a gentleman with his large lady friend (resplendent in shiny red track pants. Mmm).
It was the first time I'd driven in months (no car at school, I'll have you recall), and, other than taking the turn out of the Nahant rotary a teensy weensy bit fast, I did nothing bad. Joy! I parked so crookedly that it defied belief, but my actual driving was just dandy.
That's about it, I suppose. Tomorrow I'm heading out to Tufts, and then we're going out to dinner in Boston, so that ought to be highly glorious. If I have the time and/or the inclination, I'll be sure to blog about that when it happens. And I'll be back at Michigan sometime on Sunday.
So until the next, I leave you with a news story filled with awesomeness!
9:45 PM
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