Thursday, January 31, 2002
Yes everyone, I am still here. I've been rather busy these last few days with homework, and I should even be reading right now instead of writing this. In conjunction with my return, I have these changed the colors from the usual blues to this rather garish pink-black combination to reflect the upcoming Valentine's Day. I hate the holiday myself, but any excuse I can get to play with the colors I'll take.
Of course, the reason I wasn't posting for the first few days was trivia. Our team once again had our best year to date, this time scoring 1005 points, which placed us in the top 10 for the first time. Now that the next contest is a year away again, we have lots of time to start preparing for then. We already know of several changes we can make to be more successful next year. It was nice finally have something for everyone to do, because it kept everyone busy and interested, unlike in the previous 4 years, when people had nothing to do and got bored. I'm hoping to have the pictures from the weekend posted in the next few days, but I've been so busy since I've been back that I haven't even gotten a chance to look at the pictures yet. I also want to apologize to all of you who I was supposed to visit over the weekend, but never made it. It ended up being a lot more hectic of a weekend than I had anticipated, and so due to events out of my control, I wasn't able to sneak away at all. Sorry.
Friday, January 25, 2002
Not at all surprising, the
Post-Crescent has an
article about trivia this year. Of course, every year they have to interview the same guy - John Brogan. Sure his team does well every year, but I still don't know why the article every year has to include a huge chunk about his team and how they chose to compete in the contest. Anyway, there you go.
Woowoo! Trivia is here! Annemarie isn't coming with us, as she doesn't want to miss class (totally understandable), but Molly and I are still coming. We plan on leaving Minneapolis about 1, so we should be in Appleton by 6. For anyone who can't make it back to Appleton, I remind you that you can follow the team's progress by checking out the
Too Much Trivia in the Pants website. I'll be updating our score every 50 questions (about 5-7 times over the course of the weekend), so you can see how we're doing. The WLFM website has a link to a streaming audio broadcast, but since it doesn't work very often usually, I doubt they'll have it running this weekend, but you never know. As for now, I should go to bed, as I never seem to get enough sleep the Thursday night before trivia.
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
I keep staying up too late and I keep falling asleep during the day. I fell asleep at work on Sunday and on Tuesday. Today I was feeling tired after eating lunch, so I laid down on the couch. When I woke up, I saw Peter Graves on tv, and right away I thought, "Damn, I overslept!" That was a little before 3. I went to campus for my class, and good ol' Tom Pope recognized some of us right away from class last semester. There are actually 5 of us who were in his sci-fi class last semester. Since we've already heard a lot of his lecture stuff, he's debating whether to give us different assignments or more assignments. I'm all for having different assignments, but more assignments would be bullshit. It's not like we'd be getting more credits, and it's not like we'd get any sort of extra credit, so it wouldn't be fair to us to have to do more work. I guess he's going to change our assignment for the longer papers, either making us write 5-10 pages instead of only 5-7 or having us only write one long paper, but requiring it to be even longer yet. The movies he picked for the class aren't too bad. One's I remember off the top of my head include Almost Famous, High Fidelity, Wonder Boys, Moulin Rouge, Bridget Jones' Diary, and Rob Roy. Of course, we're also being forced to watch some crap, including A.I. in class and Titanic, Saving Private Ryan, and Pearl Harbor outside of class. I guess sometimes you have to take the good with the bad. Blah. Also, as he often does, Tom indulged in one of his I've-met-lots-of-famous-people stories. This one was about how he acquired the original copy of the screenplay for Last Action Hero. Yep, that's Tom.
Monday, January 21, 2002
Know who kicked ass? The Carpenters - they kicked ass. Don't let me hear you trying to deny it, because we all know it's true, whether you're willing to admit it or not.
On that note, Burt Bacharach and Barry Manilow kick ass as well.
Damn straight.
I was hoping to go buy my books today, but the bookstores are closed for the holiday, just like everybody else. Of course, work is still on. I guess I'll just have to go there instead.
I finally found why my fridge stunk so badly. When my parents were here, my mom and I were giving my dad a hard time about how badly his shoes stank. He kept claiming it wasn't his shoes, but rather something in the fridge. Turns out we were both right. In a compartment in the fridge door was a block of cheese with a month's worth of mold on it. Mmm... tasty. I tossed it in a plastic bag with the loaf of bread that has a month's worth of mold as well and I'll leave them in the Dumpster when I leave for work.
Woowoo! I just printed out a list of books I need from the bookstore this semester, and on the list for my Modern Hollywood Genres course is "Wonder Boys," which means we not only get to read the book, but we get to watch the movie as well! Woowoo! This could be the first semester I spend over $200 with over half the books being lit books.
Wow, Liverpool are really in a rut. Ever since their win over Middlesbrough back on December 8, they've been dropping points all over the place. Since December 8, they've lost Premiership games against Chelsea, Arsenal, and Southampton and drew even with Fulham, West Ham, Bolton, Arsenal, and Southampton. The only team they managed to beat were Aston Villa. That means that in these last 9 matches they dropped a possible 19 points! They're lucky to be in fifth place and only 5 points behind current leaders (and next opponent) Manchester United, but when one considers the teams that points have been lost against, just imagine the lead at the top of the table they could have if they hadn't blown so many matches. Losses happen, so the occasional loss to better sides such as Arsenal and Chelsea are acceptable, but a loss to Southampton and draws with Fulham, West Ham, Bolton, and Southampton are just pathetic. After Saturday's draw with Southampton the Anfield fans booed the Liverpool players off the field - and rightfully so! Although Owen scored, his production has fallen off considerably, and where are the goals from players such as Heskey, Anelka, and the entire midfield. Lately Riise is scoring as much for the opposition as the Liverpool midfield have scored for the Reds. The title is still theirs for the taking, but they need to begin by beating United again on Tuesday.
I don't believe I get that many different or interesting visitors to my site, but I'd still like to test out this
link feedback script (found via
Weblog Wannabe). So let's see what happens....
Sunday, January 20, 2002
I had to work this afternoon, so I missed pretty much the entire Packer game, but I think it was better that I didn't watch it. From the little bit that I saw, plus what I listened to on the radio, I still think the Packers beat themselves, and it would have been a lot closer game they not. I spent so much of the year annoyed at the game plans that Mike Sherman drew up (especially for the offense), but they worked. So why did they play a completely different game today? Why did they come out trying to be the Rams instead of trying to be the Packers? They came out trying to be fancy and cute and fast, but that's not how they played the entire season. In fact, they spent the entire season playing slow, tough, boring, and gritty - and it worked. I think the real problem was just that they hadn't played the Rams in 4 years. They listened to too much of the hype and got caught up thinking that they really were going to have to get into an offensive shoot out. Of course, that's what allowed the Rams defense to look good today, even though I still say they're not that good. It reminded me of other previous games where it was thought from the beginning that the only way the team could win is if Favre comes out firing, such as Super Bowl XXXII, when they lost to the Broncos. Well, now they can start preparing for next season. Hopefully they pick up a few good players, because they could certainly use them. If nothing else, at least I was 2-0 today, making me 2-2 on the weekend. Hmmm... my picks for next weekend's conference championship games? Let's stick with my picks from today - Steelers and Rams. I'll hold off on a Super Bowl prediction until after I find out if I'm right next weekend.
In case you couldn't tell, my day wasn't all that interesting if all I'm writing about is football. After running to the bank to get change for the Bell and deposit checks from my mom, I returned to find Kyle there. Apparently he wanted to make sure someone was there, because I was written in for last Sunday and didn't show up. Apparently that fucking moron Adam wrote me in for last Sunday, even though I wasn't even going to be in the state. He's such a fucking idiot. Instead of talking to Chris about switching nights, he just got upset and scribbled his name off of Saturdays. Now I understand he's quitting the box office all together to do PR. Great, someone who is possibly a bigger idiot than Bruno. Just what the film society needs. Atleast it means I won't have to put up with his bullshit around the box office anymore. On the other hand, it means that I have to put up with his shit everytime I'm in the office. Now he's going to go around acting like he's my boss, even though he's not, and I would quit a job long before I was ever left working for someone like him. I also talked to Kyle about the website tonight, and so now I'm going to be doing that. Although I can't do the deposit tomorrow (banks are closed), I guess I'm going to go in for a little while tomorrow to take care of the pile of memberships that have built up. I'll probably take the opportunity to get the information for the webpage (ftp crap and passwords and such) and make a few changes requiring Photoshop (since my copy isn't working). Yeah. That's enough for tonight. I told you it wouldn't be interesting.
Gnak! John McLaughlin just refered to Ken Lay (of Enron fame) as an F.O.B. (Friend of Bill [Clinton]). You know, as opposed to Mr. Metallica's cronies the F.O.P. (Friends of Phil). Gnak.
In the last few hours, there are have been a number of developments. Perhaps I shall just delve directly into them:
» Molly called me earlier, while we were on the phone, Jonathan called me. By doing this, I discovered that I now have call waiting. Aren't I the shit?
» I stopped down by Jonathan to pick up my mail from the past month and he handed me an entire bag full. Of course, about half of it was junk mail. In addition, there were 3 issues of Entertainment Weekly, a bank statement, 2 overdraft statements (TCF's overdraft is now up to a ridiculous $30 per occurance!), a phone bill, an electric bill, a tuition statement concerning my loans from the U, and a large envelope with legal and instructional information from my new local phone service provider McLeod USA. According to this card that was in the envelope, I guess in addition to call waiting, I also have call transfer, consultation hold, and 3-way calling. Cool.
» Jonathan also gave me a souvenir that he picked up while at Niagra Falls recently. He said he thought of me as soon as he saw it. What do y'all think? Me thinks it's hi-larious!
» After returning to my apartment I watched the Patriots-Raiders game. Usually AFC games bore me to no end, but not this one. I think it had more to do with the snow than anything else. I can't believe how many players in the game had quite obviously never played in snow before! The one's who were losing their footing obviously had no clue how to run in the snow. I miss the days of playing pick-up games with my friends in the snow - that was the best way to play.
» Speaking of football, I was 0-2 in my picks today. I was pretty sure that both the Bears and Raiders were going to win, but this just goes to show how much I know. Since I'm here, I'll make my picks for Sunday's games public before the games. While we all know I'll be cheering for the Packers, I'm realistic, and I don't think the Packers offense can keep up with the Rams offense. That even includes my opinion that the Rams defense is the most overrated in the NFL this season, while the Packers defense (and especially their secondary) is the most underrated. Rams by atleast 7. In the game, there are two good defenses, but just like the Bears-Eagles game today, the team with the better offense will be the winner, and I don't think there's any doubt that the Steelers have the best offense in that game. Pittsburgh by 10 in a low scoring game.
At this point I'm getting pretty tired, so I think it's time to fall asleep watching a movie. I have lots of work to do tomorrow, as Liza called me twice tonight to tell me things that I need to do tomorrow while at the box office or before. Nighty night.
P.S. I'm not going to even bother making Golden Globes predictions. I'll just wait until the winners are announced and then complain until Oscar time.
Saturday, January 19, 2002
The reason I was on the U's site and found the news about the bridges is because I finally got around to ordering my bus pass. Unfortunately, since I was so slothful in getting around to ordering, obviously I won't have it by the time classes start on Tuesday. I guess I'll probably have to drive to class the first week or two. Atleast I can leave my car at work and walk or ride the Connector to class, but I don't know what I'll do for my night classes when I can't leave my car in office's lot and I don't want to pay to park. Crapola.
Holy shit! The pedestrian bridges over Washington Avenue connecting Northrop Mall with Coffman are
gone! According to Facilities Management's website, the busstops will be closed from the first week of March until the bridge replacement project is completed in September. Poor nostalgic bridges.
I just realized that this site not only exists as blueflower.org, but also as
blueflower.cc. Apparently it's registered to me at NameZero, which means you can access the site that way, but it places their stupid banner thing on the bottom
and uses pop-up ads. I'd rather pay for the ad-less name than have that stupid one filled with pop-ups and banner ads.
Ahhh... back in Minneapolis. Getting back here last night, it's been so long since I was last here that it was a little strange. Well, it's also a little strange having my parents spending the night, but that goes without saying. We picked up my car this morning, ate breakfast at Denny's, and then went grocery shopping. It seemed like everything I wanted was on sale there, so I ended up saving over $10. Actually, I misspoke - my parents saved over $10. I'm broke, so they paid for my groceries, along with cutting me a check as an advance on my loan for this semester. Hopefully I can start making the big bucks back at work and I'll be out of financial problems. For now I need to get a hold of Jonathan and get my mail from him. I'm not sure if he's even around for some reason, but if he is, I think he's just at work today. I'm just going to be boring today and watch tv all night long. Actually, I'm interspersing that unpacking. I came back here with a hell of a lot more stuff than with which I went home. Atleast I remembered my skis for once, so hopefully I can get out this year and do a little skiing. I haven't been skiing since freshman year - dang.
Friday, January 18, 2002
I think I took decent advantage of my last evening here in Appleton. I went over to Matt and Carrie's, and the three of us went to Perkins. We then went bowling - the first time I'd done that in months - and I had 3 games finally above-average: 163, 161, and 193 (172 average). We then went back to their place and shot the shit until they went to bed at 1. After leaving there, I wanted to say good-bye to Trixie and the others, so I went over there, we watched a little "Futurama," and I talked with Trixie while she cleaned the house. We then caught the end of a movie on TCM and I came home so she could go to bed. I'll probably sleep in in the morning, but atleast I can, because I have until my parents come home between 4 and 5-ish to get packed and ready to go. I don't really want to go back, but I understand it's time to get back to a responsible routine again.
Thursday, January 17, 2002
I've been talking to other people lately and the general consensus seems to be that trivia is dying. Like humans cutting down the rainforests, the internet is destroying trivia. I made similar comments to these on
December 6. It's becoming harder and harder for the trivia masters to come up with answers that teams will have a difficult time answering as the internet becomes more capable. One man with a phone and Google can find almost anything. The days of scouring every book in your possession and racking your brains for obscurly trivial information are gone. The contest is no longer about
if people can find the answers, but rather
how quickly they can be found. Of course, the one "if" that still remains revolves around the ability to access the station to submit an answer. Everybody who has ever tried to call in an answer knows the frustration of hearing the phone ring once or twice, only to hear the three tones and an automated operator's voice. Grrr....
Just how much time trivia has left I cannot say. Trivia weekend has never really been about winning or losing anyway. Teams take pride in answering questions and doing well, but the real reason for taking part is getting back together with friends and family we haven't seen in months. While the contest has created rivalalries among long-participating teams, before and after the contest these same opposing teams can share a laugh about the silliness of spending a weekend devoted to the recalling, rediscovering, and answering questions about useless information. Viewed from this side, trivia has a long life ahead of it.
We have to be realistic though. For 36 years (2002 being the 37th), Lawrence students and Appleton citizens have taken over the school and taxed the phone system to the maximum of its capabilities (and then some). Eventually the day will come when it is no longer economically viable for the University to sponsor such a contest. People move on, grow up, and move away. Interest passes from generation to generation, but we all know that the chain breaks in places every year. Even the most optimistic view, taking trivia as a social event more than a contest of knowledge, realizes that all good things must one day come to an end. We can all hope that it doesn't happen under our watch and during our lifetime, but a dark specter of failure looms ever larger for each passing year.
Nevertheless, the 37th Annual Great Midwest Trivia Contest will go on. Starting at 10:00:37 PM on Friday, January 25, 2002, hundreds - if not thousands - of people will be gathered around radios, computers, files, and stacks of books searching for answers once again. They'll down more caffeine in 50 hours than most of them should in an entire year. If I know our team, there'll be enough empty bottles and extinguished cigarette butts by Monday morning to fill a garbage truck. I'll be there, we'll all be there, because no matter how the knowledge is acquired, the side effects of trivia are always the same - fun.
I have no life.
having problems getting my last entry to post, I decided to take some time and look at old posts. I just finally realized how much I posted in December. I posted 110 times over 29 days (I made no posts on Christmas Day or Boxing Day). That's an average of 3.8 posts a day (and there were some days when I only made 1, telling you how much I posted on some other days!). I really need to get a life.
I was going to make better use of my second-to-last evening back in Appleton, but instead I watched crap on tv with my parents, saw our basketball team fall apart and lose to Wisconsin, and then I fell asleep shortly after 9 watching
Young Frankenstein. I woke up this morning and watched
The Bridge on the River Kwai, and I suspect this afternoon I'll watch
Election, saving just one movie for tomorrow. I realize now that I hadn't mentioned it earlier, but I watched
Les Bonnes Femmes yesterday morning, and I really liked it. I was expecting it to be another boring and pretentious New Wave film, but it turned out to be pretty entertaining. I'm planning to use tonight and tomorrow to do all the things around town that I wanted to do before I go back to Minneapolis, seeing as I don't know I'll be back here (trivia weekend doesn't count, because you spend an entire weekend in a house).
I'm getting fat on my mom's cake. I've been good about sweets and soda for the most part since I've been home, but my mom made this cake Tuesday night, and it's so freshy and squishy and tasty that I can't hold back from eating more. I think I've eaten almost half the damn thing myself. So much for willpower. I guess it's a good thing that I don't cook or bake. One day I'll make the mistake of meeting a young lass who does cook and bake and I'm just going to become a fat slob.
Wednesday, January 16, 2002
Holy shit! Who knew they had law schools in the Appalachians?! I've said it once, I'll say two or three times: Hicks and lawyers go together like water and oil. And yes, I'm aware that the gunman was Nigerian and not a hick, but who comes to America to attend law school in Western Virginia?
After two days worth of work, my own
redesign of the
film society website is done. I'm still playing with a couple of things, but for all intensive purposes it's complete. I guess it's nothing too great, but it's definitely better than what they have now. The next step is for me to pitch my design to them in the office when I return to town next week. I can't believe classes start in less than a week and trivia starts in 9 days. Let's everybody cross your fingers and hope that A) Molly's car is functioning well, and B) we have good weather, because I don't have $100 to take the Greyhound roundtrip this year.
Tuesday, January 15, 2002
Well, someone figured out how to update the film society website. Rather haphazardly, but they did it. For some reason known only to the morons who come up with the schedules, we're starting 9:15 shows again on weeknights and they have movies starting as early as 1 on Super Bowl Sunday. I work with some stupid, stupid people. With nothing better to do today, I sat around on the computer and actually accomplished quite a bit toward my own re-design of the film society website. I'd have to say that it's looking pretty decent so far, even without the luxury of decent press photos.
I also finally went out for the first time tonight since before my surgery. I went over to Matt and Carrie's, where Matt and I rented a movie and brought it back there. Somehow I let him talk me into renting The Animal. You thought it looked awful in the commercials? The movie is actually worse (if that's possible). The one highlight (if you can considerate it actually a highlight) is Norm MacDonald, but please don't bother renting the movie to find out what I mean. The guy at the video store actually asked if we wanted it one night or two. Was he serious? I dropped it off after about 2 hours. I should get a discount for that. No, I should get a medal just for having sat through The Animal.
One of the things which I was thinking about while I was lying in bed and couldn't sleep was ideas for redesigning the
film society website. If you've ever looked at it, you know how much it sucks. Now that Bruno has quit, I'll make my case for letting me redesign and maintain the website. I have lots of great ideas for what we should do with it. I've also spend the last hour or so looking at websites for other film festivals and theatres, and what I've found is that a lot of my ideas are close to those designs being used on much better websites. Perhaps now I'll attempt to force myself to sleep for the purpose of rising later today and starting work on it. Of course, if I start now, who knows if they'll use my work, and they probably won't pay me for my work, but nevertheless it would be better than what they're using now. Since nobody in the office knows how to update a website (we're lucky they know how to turn computers on), our current schedule isn't even listed on the site. I need to get back to Minneapolis. Now.
I almost forgot to mention something. Sitting next to me on a table by the computer is a data form my brother apparently received from Who's Who in Sports. I find these things rather amusing because it seems completely random how they decide to put people in their books. They obviously don't know my brother's record in high school sports or anything about his athletic abilities. Even more entertaining is the information he has listed on the sheet about himself. To begin with, I thought I had a cheesy email address, but he tops me with rudivalentino2002@yahoo.com. Sounds like a good email address for me to sign up for lots of spam. As for his height, he wrote 5'10". Let me tell you something - I'm 5'9" standing on stilts, and he's at most as tall as I am. As for his weight, he listed 152, which is what he's been starving himself recently to get down to for wrestling. In reality he's well over 160 for most of the year. I'm only slightly surprised that he listed soccer as his primary sport, as I understand he sat the bench all season. I mean, atleast in wrestling he gets to compete every week - even though he loses every time. I guess I'm not being very nice to my brother tonight, but it's not like he doesn't deserve me being an ass to him. There's just something about a guy who likes to give the impression to others that he's a jock, yet he lacks athletic talent, he lacks the will to work hard, and he really has no interest in sports. This is a kid who will pretend he knows something about football, but while we have half the relations over to watch a Packer game, he'll be the only one in the other room playing video games. The closest he gets to watching any kind of sports is the WWF. He's beyond pretentious, and I guess that's the part that bothers me. Oh well, it's his lame and pathetic life. It's not mine to live; only to mock.
I think I dozed off in the recliner by about 9 tonight, yet I must have been awake when my mom went to bed, because I remember her handing me the remote and telling me she was going to bed. At any rate, I woke up about 1:30 lying in the recliner with the tv on and decided to climb in my bed for the first time in a week. The problem is that once I got back in there, I couldn't fall asleep. I've spent the last hour lying in bed thinking. Curses! Why did I have to fall asleep so early tonight?!
Monday, January 14, 2002
Ooo-oo-oo... it's snow again! Yay!
So, I enter "groutflow" into the search engine on RegisterFly, and of course groutflow.com is available. What I got more of a kick out of was reading their list of additional available names. Possibilities on the list include:
- plasterflows.com
- brickworkflow.com
- wallcoveringsflow.com
- grouting-compounds-flow.com
- grouts-flowing.com
- plasterflowing.com
Hmmm... gets you thinking, doesn't it?
I rode the bus downtown to the library. It was the first time I had ridden the local buses since about 1994. Quite a change after riding Metro Transit all the time. While I was standing waiting for the bus and all along the ride I was snapping photos - mostly of the snow and the inside of the bus. While I was at the library, I returned my old DVDs and picked up six new ones: Election, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Les Bonnes Femmes, Rope, and All About My Mother. I figure those ought to last me atleast until Wednesday, at which time my brother will be in the middle of finals and I might have more access to a vehicle during the day. I also ran through a bit of microfilm looking for my grandmother's obituary from the Post-Crescent. I managed to find it and print it out, but it didn't really give me a whole lot of information I was looking for. The only things I confirmed were the day she died and the number of siblings she had. I never knew that she came from a family of six brothers and sisters. I don't think I can find much more genealogical information on that side of the family without traveling to Milwaukee, but even that probably wouldn't help much. Damn family. Well, after returning home on the bus again, I re-shoveled to clear out the slippery mess that had covered the driveway from this morning's precipitation and to clear out the end of the driveway where the plows had blocked it. I suppose it's time for Oreo and I to settle down for another movie or two this afternoon.
I sat around watching tv last night, and then I finally decided to watch Amadeus. That was a good decision, as of the 26 or so movies I've seen in the last 10 days, it was definitely in the top 5. After that I dozed off on the couch once again watching What! No Beer?, a a 1933 talky with Buster Keaton and Jimmy Durante, on TCM. I was almost tempted to go out for a walk last night, as it snowed here, and so the night lights were reflecting beautifully off the new-fallen snow. I don't know if I could ever live somewhere that doesn't get snow because for me there's nothing like going out for a walk in the glow of new-fallen snow. Magical. Anyway, I don't know what I'm going to do today. Since I don't have any movies left around here to watch, I suppose I'll probably take a little trip downtown to the library again. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to hoof it or ride the bus.
Sunday, January 13, 2002
Back again. Went out for food with the fam. Ate half a fried chicken and 3 orders of mashed potatoes. Came home and watched the Packers-Niners game. Bored out of my mind by the Ravens-Dolphins game. Man, are they ever two boring teams or what? I was so happy to see Tampa lose to Philly yesterday if for no other reason than just because they're so fucking boring. Well,
that, and my personal objections to their starting running back being voted to the Pro Bowl as a fullback for the 5th consecutive year, while
real fullbacks get no recognition.
So, as you can see, I may not have been here in a couple days, but it's not like I had anything to write about anyway. My mom is currently reheating some chili (I hate chili), but food is food. I'm not sure yet if I'll just watch tv after dinner if I'll make an attempt to get out of the house for once. I haven't socialized with anyone outside my family in a week. Fucking teeth.
All of my grades have finally been posted. I don't know how I only got a B in Intro to Film Studies since I got an A on everything that I turned in, but I'm not going to waste my time. I'm looking forward to graduating so I never have to deal with a TA again. Grad school has to be like a dream - getting to work with all professors and stupid TAs. Man. Anyway, somehow I managed to once again not get a single "A" this semester. I still have not gotten even 1 "A" in college. In good news, I got my first 3.0 since I was a freshman in high school, registering a 3.212 this semester. Go me.
I'm back from a little two-day hiatus. I've spent my time well, watching movies, going for a walk, and going shopping. I didn't end up doing anything Thursday night but falling asleep before the television. I finished watching the movies on Friday, and then I went for a walk, stopping at Tom's for a milkshake, before going to the library to get some new movies. This time I picked up Amadeus, Saboteur, Startup.com, and Chuck & Buck. The last one was pretty dumb and full of too many uncomfortable moments for my liking. Saboteur was great - as Hitch always is. Startup.com was okay, but not what I was expecting. I haven't seen Amadeus yet, but I'll probably do that tonight or tomorrow. I also went to the movies with my parents Friday night, where we saw the last John Cusack movie Serendipity. Yesterday I went shopping with my parents, and while we were out I got a new pair of shoes. I've had my last pair for a year and a half and they were developing a hole in the bottom. I guess now my parents want to go eat, so I need to go. I'll continue this another time.
Thursday, January 10, 2002
I found my entertainment for the next hour atleast - Dave Thomas on "Biography."
My goal of actually leaving the house and getting atleast a little exercise ended up falling through when I decided to spend all day on the computer. The only thing I accomplished was to make three more mix cds. I might go out tonight, but I don't know yet. I was going to go over to Matt and Carrie's when Mom left for Mike's wrestling meet at West, but they were going to be going out to eat. They might call again later, but who knows. If they don't, I guess maybe I'll entertain myself by watching movies or something. Without a vehicle, there's not a whole lot that I can do. It's not like there's a whole lot I can do anyway. I can't drink and there isn't a whole lot that I can eat. I'm not really up for a whole lot of physical activity either. What a shitty way to waste away my last winter break.
You know the worst part about this whole wisdom teeth issue? The not being able to eat anything. I called up my mom and asked her if she was going to my brother's wrestling meet. She then asked if I wanted her to bring something home after work, and told her, "Yeah, anything is better than eating pudding and mac and cheese." So she tells me, "Well, you could make yourself some Jell-o or tomato soup. How about apple sauce? You could make some mashed potatoes also." Jesus mom, it's been 3 days, I think I can begin to move away from toothless-bastard foods and atleast eat something different. I'm not expecting taffy and steak, but I know there's more that I can eat by now. Last night she made barbecue chicken. Yeah, I had to sit here and smell that shit and watch the family eat. Then when I bitched at her for making all this stuff when I can't eat it, my dumbfuck brother has to first complain that he can't eat it because of wrestling, and then tell me to quit my whining. I wanted to slug the idiot and tell him to shut the fuck up, but of course my mom would have ignored his fucking comments and would have just punished me. Fuck that shit. I read this shit about people not doing things because of public prohibition or their superego or whatever the fuck, but you want to know the only reason why I don't do certain things (or atleast in the presence of my parents)? It's because I hate fucking listening to them. When I'm away from my parents, I have almost no conscience whatsoever, but when I'm here, I hold back from doing things so that they can't bitch at me all night and day. I have to be the only 21 year-old who doesn't live with his parents, but whose parents try to punish him anyway. Pisses me off.
I ended up watching 4 movies yesterday, but the first two -
Nashville and
Rififi - were the best.
Last Year at Marienbad was just as boring (if not moreso) as
Hiroshima, Mon Amour. I'm quickly becoming convinced that every movie Alain Resnais ever made must have been boring and stupid. With two left for today, we'll see what happens. I might even get ambitious enough to walk downtown. Lawd I could use the exercise.
It's my first day home alone. I mean, since Monday. I guess it really doesn't mean much, except since I know when to pop my pills, I don't have to have anyone sitting around nagging me, "Did you take your pills yet?" Of course, it's not a big deal, I suppose. I'll just go about business as usual. I'm still all swollen, but I think it's gone down some, and I hope it continues to go down. I'm also trying to clean myself up finally. I just brushed my teeth for the first time in 3 days, and a little later I hope to shave and shower for the first time since Sunday night. I'm going to be a new man. Okay, not really. In the mean time, I'm working on making a cd-dub of The Housemartins' "Now that's what I call quite good" for my mom. I had originally made her a copy on cassette a year ago, but apparently her cassette player ate the tape. That should be done soon, and then I'm going to go back to watching movies. Oh yeah.
Wednesday, January 09, 2002
I'm still swollen rather nicely and I still don't have feeling on the left-half of my jaw. Yep, improving nicely. If nothing else, atleast I'm losing weight by not being able to eat anything. When I weighed myself in this morning I had lost 7 pounds since Sunday. I know there's a lot of fluctuation in there from water weight, but it's nice to know that I'm shedding off atleast a few pounds. I suppose exercise would help some too, but I can't get into doing that for atleast a few days yet. Since I watched all four movies that I got from the library yesterday, Dad ran me up to the library this morning and I picked up 6 more. I've already watched Nashville, I'm about to watch Rififi, and that leaves The Passion of Joan of Arc, Last Year at Marienbad, Mister Roberts, and Welcome to the Dollhouse. Since I won't have a parent around tomorrow (and therefore won't have a car), I figured I should get 6 right away so that I have some for tomorrow also. So there's the plan - I watch movies all day while spaced out on a dozen pills. My parents have decided that I'm going back to Minneapolis a day earlier than expected as well. We're now going to drive up on the 18th, they'll stay overnight, and then they'll drive back here to Appleton on the 19th. I'll have been home for a month, so it's not like I care if I lose one night here. It's also not like I won't be back in town a week later for trivia. I don't know where my dad is. I think Neenah. He's been running errands all day long. My brother stopped home on his lunch break to do homework. Maybe I'll sign back on later, but for now I'm going to go watch Rififi.
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
I couldn't believe it when I heard it. I still can't believe it. I can't believe that my main man Dave Thomas could be dead. I feel like I should be doing nothing but eating at Wendy's for a week (if I could). I heard the sad, sad news while watching Cinema Paradiso. My mom was in the living room watching the midday news and I overheard. I yelled in the other room to confirm what I thought I'd heard, and my mom confirmed my fears. Me thinks this is the blackest day in centuries. Oooo... "Jeopardy!" is on....
Well, we're back home from the library. My mom renewed her library card and I picked up Taxi Driver, Gigi, Cinema Paradiso, and Cleo from 5 to 7. My mom wants me to hold off on watching the former two so she can watch them with me, so I'm going to watch the latter two first. That's pretty much home my day will go. Well, that, and drinking shakes and icing my face. So much fun.
Right now I look like Vito Corleone on dope. Wonderful. Apparently the doc had a bitch of a time digging out one or more of my teeth, so there were extra problems and extra pain involved. I was originally prescribed some crappy painkiller, but after the surgery, he sent me home with an envelope of vicodin. I was still bleeding some when I went to bed last night, and I still can't feel part of my face. Boy, this was soooooo worth it.
We returned home about 10 yesterday morning, I popped some pills, and I dozed off watching Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. After waking up again, I spent the day watching The 400 Blows, Wonder Boys, Mildred Pierce, and the Viking-Ravens game. You know, I've made some pretty tough comments about players before, but as far as NFL quarterbacks go, Spergon Wynn has to be the worst I've ever seen. He makes Tony Banks and Trent Dilfer look good. He makes Todd Marinovich look good. Hell, he makes former Packer back-ups Anthony Dilweg and Blair Kiel look good. He makes me look good. Yeah, that bad. Anyway, I fell asleep in the recliner after that. I woke up this morning and watched Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? again (awake this time). In a little bit my mom and I are going to run to the library so I can get some more movies. She wants to get back before he soaps start, so I should go. Later!
Sunday, January 06, 2002
Well, this is it - next time you hear from me I shall have four less teeth. Yeah. Today wasn't such an exciting day either. Since my brother was at work, we took advantage of the opportunity and went to Good Company for lunch (he hates the place - like he hates pretty much every place). We then returned home and watched the Packer game. After the game I went to the library and checked out three DVDs: The Graduate, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and The 400 Blows. I came home and watched The Graduate while my parents went shopping. When they came home we ate dinner. I then went and hung out at Trixie's until just before 10. Now that I'm back home, I'm going to shower and get to bed early for once. As much as I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning (I've never had surgery other than the 5 stiches in my mouth from slashing it open when I was 5), I'd rather get to sleep and forget about it. Nighty night.
I just finished posting my pics from New Year's. I posted them all only as 200x150 (due to space concerns and laziness), but if anyone wants full-size copies, I can arrange for emailing them to you.
While I was waiting for the pictures to upload, I did a little genealogy research on Ancestry.com. Checking out social security death records, their index lists neither a year of birth, nor a place of residence for my paternal grandfather. My paternal grandmother on the other hand has all of her info filled in. Interesting....
I wanna give a big Merry Christmas shout out to all my Eastern Orthodox peeps. Yo, this one's for you....
I may not have done much, but atleast I got out of the house tonight. My parents finally came home about 11:15, so I left by 11:30 and went over to Trixie's. She was cleaning her room, but Phil (who I just met tonight) and I sat up there talking to her anyway. She was going to go to bed about 1, so we went downstairs and joined Nick for a short time. Phil left, and I left just as Nick was about to go to bed and Matt and Justin were just returning from somewhere. Like I said, it wasn't all that exciting, but atleast I got out. We also made up a list of possible trucker CB handles for me. I'll still have to keep thinking that one over.
Saturday, January 05, 2002
Apparently my parents and I have different ideas about the definition of "coming home early." The unusual situation here is that they are the ones who are out, while I am the one sitting home waiting for them. They said they wouldn't be staying out late, so I've been sitting home waiting for them to come home in anticipation of having the vehicle. Here it is 10:40 and they're still not home. Jesus, everyone else is going to be in bed already. This is just another reason why I can't wait to get back to Minneapolis - atleast I have ways of getting around town, whether it be by my car or bus or even walking. This sucks.
I finally ate my
pirate cookie tonight. Arrrrrrrrrrrrgh!!!
We finally took the time to set up my dad's new DVD player, and while we had it set up, my mom and I watched my dad's only DVD - Remember the Titans. I don't like Jerry Bruckheimer, but Denzel Washington trumps JB and made the film worth watching. Right now I'm watching Kindergarten Cop, but Bus Stop is coming on soon, so I'll watch that instead. Sure will.
I didn't do so much last night. Well, that's only partially true. I went over to Matt and Carrie's, where we played some darts, played Loser Takes All, ate hot wings, and watched Dogma. I then came home and fell asleep on the couch watching some show about drive-thru's. Right now I'm trying to watch How The West Was Won, but I've already missed quite a bit of it. I'll have to run and rent it or something.
Friday, January 04, 2002
The newest version of the Minneapolis City Council is off to
a great start. There's nothing quite like having city employees sulking because they don't get their way (especially one's representing rich neighborhoods like southwest) or having to have the mayor hire a $175-per-hour facilitator to work through disagreements among council members. Oh yeah, a great start.
I went to see The Royal Tenenbaums today, but I can't even think about that right now, because I'm just not in a good mood anymore. I need to transfer money to my TCF account, and I wanted to just make a deposit, but apparently they closed all of their branches in this area. Of course, it took me driving around all over town to find that out. After getting back home, I checked online, but couldn't find anything, so I placed a call to them. The guy I talked to said the only thing I could do is wire them money via Western Union (or comparable money wire service), in which case I'd have to pay both Western Union's fees and a $10 charge to TCF. I'm sure those will still be less than an overdraft fee from TCF, so I'm going to have to take care of that after I pick my mom up from work, which I have to go do here in just a moment. Fuck.
Thursday, January 03, 2002
Another - ahem - grueling night out on the town. I went to Deja-Vu (the self-proclaimed "best martini bar north of Chicago") with Carrie, Matt, and Brent. We were there for quite a while, and then we went back to Matt and Carrie's, where we played a round of darts. I can't believe I actually won for once! I guess it's all in the luck for me, and I suppose, just like with Scrabble, the law of averages would say that I can't lose every time. We then sat around talking for a bit, and then I came home. I got my mom to leave me the van tomorrow, so I'm going to run to TCF (as soon as I find one) and transfer money so my rent check doesn't bounce, and then I'm going to go to Hollywood and see The Royal Tennenbaums, which finally found its way to Appleton. I'd go see A Beautiful Mind right away too, but I have to pick my mom up from work at 4, so there just wouldn't be time. As for right now, I'm trying to keep the damn cats from running laps.
i just finished taking this stupid
Find your own "Best Place to Live" questionaire. My top 10, which didn't really surprise me too much, were:
1) Boston, MA-NH-ME
2) San Francisco, CA
3) Long Island, NY
4) Washington, DC-MD-VA-WV
5) Pittsburgh, PA
6) New York, NY
7) Stamford-Norwalk, CT
8) Danbury, CT
9) Middlesex-Somerset-Hunterdon, NJ
10) Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI
The worst part about pretty much every one of these is the cost of living index. Some of them are nice and I've actually considered checking out (such as Boston, San Francisco, and Pittsburgh), but the majority of them (including 2 of the 3 I just mentioned) are just so expensive to live in. The Twin Cities isn't such a bad place, but with the reluctance of Minnesotans to want to properly fund their schools, I sure as hell wouldn't want to raise a family there. It's just ridiculous that some of the area school districts are going to 4-day school weeks next year because they can't afford 5-day weeks.
Double Standards?
One recent story which hasn't received enough press involves the removal of a secret service agent from his flight to Dallas on Christmas. The 33-year-old agent, who is of Arab-American decent, was allegedly removed from the American Airlines plane at the request of the pilot. The agent, who remains unnamed, and his lawyers claim the actions of the pilot comprise racial profiling, and they want the airline to admit wrongdoing. Of course, they have no problem with all of the other Arab-Americans who have been wrongfully removed from flights since September 11, and they raise no questions over the hundreds of innocent people held without charge under suspicions of terrorist activity. It is, of course, President Bush's own people who are behind the mass-hysteria which has led to the illegal detainments and alleged racial profilings, yet this article from CNN offers a humorous quote from Bush, where he states "he would be 'madder than heck' if racial profiling was a factor." So, what this tells us is that if you work for the government, you should be free from harassment, but if you're in the unfortunate situation of only being a law-abiding citizen, then you have no rights. Hmm... I think there might possible be a double standard here, but maybe it's just me.
I made relatively good use of my time today when I spent 3 hours this afternoon at George Webb. I walked over there just before noon for lunch, and spent the next few hours after eating working on my senior paper. I finally left and walked home just before 3, and then I watched both episodes of "Jeopardy!". Mom was home by the time I got out of the shower, so she made me dinner, and now I'm just sitting around doing whatever again. I'm waiting to find out when we're going to go to the martini bar, but in the mean time I think I'm going to try to get a start on posting my New Year's pics.
I didn't think I was going to end up going out last night, but then I ended up going out anyway. I went over to Matt and Carrie's, where we watched tv, and then watched Matt play FFX. It was nice just to get out of the house. I came home and Paths of Glory had just come on, so I watched that. I was also taping it, so now I finally have all of the available Kubrick's (i.e. everything Killer's Kiss and beyond). I ended up falling asleep on the couch, but woke up sometime after 1 to find Das Boot, so instead of going to bed like I should have, I started watching that. Well, I was probably out again in 5 minutes, and I didn't wake up then until 4:45, when I finally shut everything down and went to bed. I'm kind of bouncing around among things right now, but tonight I think we might be going to the martini bar again. This time we're going to plan a little better and show up there dressed up.
Wednesday, January 02, 2002
I went to my pre-surgery exam with the oral surgeon this afternoon and now my mouth hurts at just the thought of getting my wisdom teeth out. They took an x-ray in this weird machine that looked like something out of a sci-fi flick, made me answer a bunch of questions about my health, and then they showed me the x-ray and told me what needs to be done. Both wisdom teeth on the bottom are completely impacted and need to be removed. The wisdom teeth on the top are both partially impacted and not currently causing problems, but it's better to have them out now than to have to go through the procedure again when they do become a problem. They're also putting me under, so atleast I won't have to be conscious of them playing around in my mouth while they're doing it. Man, this sucks.
Back to modern times, I'm sitting around the house once again with nothing to do. I'd watch tv, but there isn't a damn thing on worth watching. Here I am on the computer, while my dad is sitting behind me at the kitchen counter reading today's newspaper and my mom is lying in a recliner in the family room watching her tape of today's soaps. It looks like my obsessive-compulsive cat has taken a temporary break from licking herself, but who knows how long that will last. My mom made meatloaf tonight for dinner. I can't think of a more crass meal with which to intimidate a vegetarian. Sit a vegetarian down in a chair. Shit no, tie them to the damn chair. Then set a big ol' pan of meatloaf in front of them. That's right, a big pan of red meat. Tasty. I'd faint. I'm being stupid.
Just in for a quick update now. I'm killing time today listening to music and doing whatever. My mom is picking me up about 2:45 for the examination by the surgeon on my teeth. It's nice having everyone out of the house and the house all to myself again. Except for a few days next week, this how it ought to be the rest of the weekdays before I go back How nice.
Tuesday, January 01, 2002
Yeah, guess who's back. My neck is sore and it's giving me a slight headache. The whole family went to bed already, but that would make sense, seeing as they all have work or school tomorrow, but I don't. I'm still downloading crap, but I've now also gone through my pictures from last night and started editing them down. I'm currently down from 173 to 88, but I'm still making choices as to what to keep and what to cut. I suspect in the end the pictures will be cut down to 20-30. As computers, I'm pissed about this one. My parents a shitload of money for a new computer and the damn thing doesn't even have a headphone jack. Theoretically, I suppose I could reach in the back, unplug the speakers, and plug my headphones into the speaker jack, but what kind of a pain in the ass is that? Fucking morons designing these things these days.
I haven't done a good job of finding anything to do tonight. In fact, I've been online ever since making my last entry. I've spent most of the night downloading Anal Cunt songs, which I should probably burn onto a cd and delete tomorrow before the fam sees them and they freak out. I've also read a multitude of online versions of newspapers. Oh well, I guess you need some of these boring nights to offset the nights like last night.
I'm back home for now. I called my mom about 4 to find out what time dinner would be served, and she sounded rather annoyed that I wasn't already home, as they had already begun eating. I packed up my things and came home about 15 minutes later. now that I've finished eating, I don't really have anything to do. Maybe I'll watch tv or something... I don't know. I'm sure I'll come up with something.
It looks like the liquor is finally starting to wear off. Of course, the spaghetti that Carrie made Matt and I for lunch did wonders for speeding along the process of getting the stuff out of the ol' system. Matt's still playing video games, Carrie's makin' bacon, doing dishes, and doing laundry, and here I am on the 'puter. It's nice to be able to kick back and relax, although I know I have to get home by supper because my mom is expecting me. She's supposed to be making a large meal, but I don't know that I'm all that excited, because the main dish is turkey. As if I haven't had
enough turkey in the last week! Oh well. I think it's tomorrow that I have to go in for the first examination on my wisdom teeth. They're going to take a good look at what they're dealing with so that they're ready to just get to work when I show up for surgery at 8 am next Monday. That's going to be a bitch.
I went through the 170 pictures I took last night and this morning, and I now see why there are so many. As expected, there are a lot of throw away pictures. I'd say there are somewhere in the area of atleast 100. And then with the whole being slightly inebriated, I seem to have forgotten about the night function on the camera, so the pictures I tried to take of the stupid neighbors shooting off fireworks didn't really turn out. Speaking of the stupid neighbors, one of them stopped over earlier (he was the one mentioned at the end of the last entry). I guess he stopped over to introduce himself and check to make sure everyone was okay after they had shot off the fireworks. Dumbass. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Happy New Year. And Stuff.
Hey everyone. I'm currently making this entry from Matt and Carrie's, where I'm still in a bit of a haze from last night. I drank a lot and I did it quickly. I also took a hell of a lot of pictures (about 170), so I'm sure I can find enough good one's that I'll probably post in the next few days.
I'm sure everyone has their own lame-ass stories about last night, so I'll bet you don't want to read another one, but I'll give you my perspective on what I remember anyway. I came over here about 7-ish last night. I had stopped over earlier in the day to drop off 4 bottles of liquor and a 12er of Premium, but I brought another bottle of So-Co with me because it was my dad's and he didn't want it. We started early with their little concoction, but picked up as the guests started to arrive. There were basically 7 of us here last night: Matt, Carrie, Ben, Justin, Brent, Greg, and I. Mika stopped by at some point before midnight with some friends of hers, but they weren't here long before they left for Park Central. We attempted to play darts, but everyone was getting drunker and drunker, so the game was taking forever. We finally just killed it and moved on. I really don't remember a lot of what else happened here. Oh, that's right... we stopped darts to play Dance Dance Revolution. Of course, we all sucked but Carrie, who rocks at the game with alcohol or not. A few minutes before midnight, the dumbass neighbors across the street were shooting off fireworks, so we went out and were yelling stupid drunk talk at them and mooning them. They also had some stupid sparking thing that Ben and Justin ran over to and jumped over. We were going to play Loser Takes All, but Ben and Justin decided to go to another party nearby, so I walked over with them. It was at this girl Rachel's house, and when we got there it was pretty dead. They were listening to some lame ass music, and there were a bunch of guys sitting on the couch playing video games. We shook the place up a bit, but them the roommates got into a big fight, I walked back to Matt and Carrie's, and Ben and Justin walked to another party. After returning, we sat around for a bit, and then Brent started throwing the AOL cds that were part of the gag gift Brent brought and with which Greg ended up. He and I ran outside and down the street throwing the cds into peoples' yards and at their cars and things. On the way back to the house, Carrie popped out from behind a car and ambushed us with more of them. When we got back to the house, I don't remember much more, as I first sort of blacked out, and then I passed out. I woke up this morning on the couch to find Ben on another part of the couch and Justin on the floor. I started picking a few things up, but Carrie had apparently done some cleaning before going to bed, and also there wasn't as big of a mess as there was last year. In fact, for the first time that I can remember, Matt and Carrie threw a party, and nobody spilled a drink on the rug or dumped an ashtray on the rug. It was actually quite impressive if you've ever been to any of their other parties. Everyone else went home, so now it's down to just the three of us here, and Carrie's making lunch while Matt plays Final Fantasy X. I'm sure you'll hear more from me soon. Sounds like someone else is here now. Later!
