What's up with people and Precious Moments tatoos? I keep getting visitors to this site looking for Precious Moments tatoos. Are you seeking permanent or temporary? Why would you want them? I guess I could possibly understand temporary Precious Moments tatoos (not that I'd want one), but permanent? Even for a woman that sounds pretty lame. Oi.

After watching the Giorgio Moroder version of Metropolis tonight, I was in a pretty good mood headed on home. That mood was crushed when I heard the news on the radio that Billy Wilder had died last night. Admittedly, he was 95 years old and in failing health, so I guess his time had come, but it's still sad to hear that your favorite director/writer/producer has died. If I didn't have so many other things that I need to do, I'd lock myself up in my apartment for the rest of the weekend and watch all his films I have on tape. Bah.

I'm sorry - I'm no racist (quite far from it actually) - but I have to speak out about some of this bullshit, because it just pisses me off. I just happen to look at Yahoo!, and one of the headlines is "Reparations Sought From U.S. Firms for Slavery." I wish I could say I understand the pain, suffering, and humiliation that generations of African-Americans and others were forced to endure, but the truth of the matter is that I never can. Even so, the idea of paying reparations, by private companies or the government, is complete bullshit. You know what? My ancestors lived for centuries under feudalism, but you don't see me filing lawsuits against any of various European governments or corporations, do you? No. Why not? Because it's something that occured long ago and now it's over.

I have similar sentiments about our relationships with the Native Americans. Yes, we all know that they were here first and we invaded their land, but have any of you ever studied world history? At all? Even a little bit? Everywhere in the world, all throughout history, groups of invaders moved into new land wiping out the current residents. I don't in any way condone these actions, and I don't think that what the Europeans did to the Native Americans could ever be justified in any way, but to make it sound as if these sorts of things never happened anywhere except here in America is just ridiculous. As for the naming of mascots after Native Americans, this is indeed a touchy subject, and I understand the anger over mascots which are unfair depictions of Native Americans, but at the same time, this country has gone too far in political correctness. You know, I have Irish ancestors, and as such I should be completely outraged that the University of Notre Dame has the Fighting Irish as a mascot, but you know what? I'm not. Screw political correctness. Do you see deacons across the nation protesting Wake Forest's Demon Deacons mascot? Of course not, because that would be ridiculous. Sometime Americans just have this special ability to piss me off which no other nation on Earth can even come remotely close to. If you want to protest something, why don't you all go protest Jay Leno and has nightly racist monologues? Why don't you protest against big corporations which are destroying our country and the Republican and Democratic congressmen (and women!) who would rather accept big campaign contributions than fight against the evils of big business? Why don't you protest over the facts that most of our problems with Middle Eastern countries boil down to A) our nearly unilateral support of Israel no matter how much bullshit they pull and B) our huge reliance in oil? Why don't you devote your time and energy to fighting further social injustices and racism still going on in this country? You people, I'm telling you... you people.

For any of you who actually follow my life here on a daily basis (and there surprisingly enough are a few of you out there), it must be a little shocking to go five days without any sort of update from me. Well, here's the explanation for that. If you'll go back to my entry on Saturday, March 9, you'll notice that I mentioned some soreness and swelling in my jaw. Well, it got worse. A lot worse. By Sunday I was having trouble opening my mouth wide enough to fit food in to eat, and that night I was in so much pain that I called my mom at 5 am and asked her what I could do. She told me to go see an oral surgeon and we'd worry about payment later. And so began my little adventure....

I went to the oral surgery part of the school of dentistry at the U on Monday afternoon for one of their free screenings. I filling out plenty of paperwork about my personal health history and my ability to pay the bills, I was eventually examined by a pre-doc. He got the details from me, and then the real doc sent me to get an x-ray. That cost $41 on the spot. Another pre-doc looked at the x-ray with the real doc, and they came to the conclusion that I had an infection. Doc wrote me out a prescription for penicillin (to attack the infection) and vicodin (to help me sleep) and off I went. I picked the meds from the pharmacy at the Midway Targhetto and bought some soft foods from Cub. Back at work, I dragged my way through the rest of the day, and by the time I finished at the box office at 10, I was completely feeling like shit. I went home, popped the meds, and fell asleep.

Woke up Tuesday and didn't feel any better. Popping more meds, I spaced out and dozed off in my Tolstoy class. Afterwards I apologized to the prof and explained the situation to him. Very understanding guy. Back in the office I was attempting to work, but it was obvious to everyone else that I wasn't really up to working. Nicole volunteered to take my box office shift that night and Kyle sent me home after finishing the memberships. I watched a little tv before passing out again.

Wednesday. I felt a little better, but not that much. Also had to write a research paper due in Tom's class at 4:30. I did that in the afternoon, but didn't get to class until a little after 5. I didn't miss much because we were watching Wonder Boys, which I've seen who-knows-how-many times. Turned in my paper to the TA, took the quiz on the book, and I walked out and went home without listening to the lecture at all. Back home I attempted to study for the Tolstoy midterm, but eventually gave up and went to sleep.

Woke up Thursday morning at 4. Decided to finish reading War and Peace sans the epilogues. Showed up at the oral surgeon's a little late for my 10:30 appointment, but they got me in as soon as they could. Feeling a lot better (but swelling still very prominent), I was hoping the doc would say the healing process looked good and I could go home. No such luck. Instead he said drainage would expediate the healing process. At this point I should tell you that if you are easily grossed out, then you should skip to the next paragraph, as this one will be rather graphic and disgusting. Okay, so he sent me down the hall to one of the residents, who was going to butcher me. I told him right away me and needles, so instead he gave me a little nitrous and also used a numbing jelly on my gums and mouth instead of a shot of novocaine. He also numbed my tongue and lips - on purpose - and I don't know why. So after he had me in the chair and relaxed, getting assistance from a female resident, he shoved a piece of rubber in my mouth (it was meant to keep my mouth open, but I imagined a scene from an S & M video with one of those balls being strapped in my mouth) and cut me open. It was actually just a small incision (or a series of small incisions - I'm not sure), which was intended to drain the blood and puss from the infection. I like to equate it to the old fashion of bloodletting. Since a lot of the infection is still solid and not yet puss, he stitched a drain fashioned from a rubber or latex tube of some sort in my mouth, which is basically mean to channel the fluids over my teeth and into my throat. As you might have guessed, I was feeling a bit nauseated the rest of the day from swallowing my own fluids. After shoving some gauze in my mouth, they gave me another prescription for vicodin and one for some special mouthwash and I was sent off. I drove to Targhetto again to fill my prescription and then I drove home in the wonderful snowstorm. I didn't leave the house again.

Friday. For those of you who skipped the details of the surgery, you didn't miss much. I woke up at 5 this morning and sat around reading for a while. Eventually I got dressed and caught a bus to campus. I had another follow up appointment at 8:15, but I got there about a half-hour early, so I had the waiting room to myself. The same resident who cut me open yesterday reexamined me today and said it'd be best if they left the drain in over the weekend, so they set me up with yet another appointment for Monday morning and I was sent home. It was quite a pleasant sight seeing the city burrow out from under yesterday and last night's snowstorm. After returning home, I grabbed my camera and headed back downtown to take a series of pictures of workers clearing the snow off Nicollet. I also tried to photograph the huge chunks of snow and ice raining down from the IDS Tower, but those pictures didn't turn out as well as hoped. I also wandered through Barnes & Noble for a while, as I am wont to do when downtown. I eventually returned home sometime around 11:30. I ate lunch, and now I'm trying to settle into the work I have set aside for spring break.

Among the work to be done are several assignments for my Bergman class and my senior paper. Well, a new draft of the senior paper. I'm also making up the Tolstoy midterm next Friday. Having finally finished War and Peace (with the exception now of the second epilogue), I have to say that it's a pretty amazing book - until he destroys it with the epilogues. Both epilogues are completely pointless and considering them part of the novel completely destroys in only 100 pages all that Tolstoy built up in the previous 1250 pages. Blech. I had wanted at one time to go to tomorrow's monster truck rally, but now I'm just not feeling up to it. Worst of all, Sunday is my first legal St. Patrick's Day. I was looking forward to getting shitfaced with my fellow Irishmen, but now I have to wait another year. Man, and Metro Transit is even offering free rides Saturday and Sunday this weekend so people can party both days. This sucks. Anyway, you have my story now. I have work to do.

P.S. The Vickerman amendment to the Senate Twins stadium bill sucks ass. St. Paul can kiss my ass.

Instead of working on homework today like I should have been, I spent the better part of the day working on redesigning this website. Although I still have a long way to go, I took out some time to make custom error pages. I now have five of them, which are all variations on the same theme. Collect all five!

• 400 - Bad Request
• 401 - Authorization Required
• 403 - Forbidden
• 404 - File Not Found
• 500 - Internal Server Error

Yep, I have no life.

I should start out today by saying: Happy Birthday Lindsey! I'm pretty sure she never reads this, but in the event that she does, she turned the big two-one today.

In other news, the left side of my mouth is all swollen up right now and I'm not sure why. It started to get a little sore yesterday, but by now it's all swollen and puffy and it hurts to chew or cough. It's not a tooth or gum problem, but it's actually (I don't know the anatomical terms here) where the jaw meets the upper part of my mouth - right at that joint. I popped some Advil and lets hope it gets better soon, because I hate dentists.

Carrie tried calling me a few times in the last few days and finally caught me at home this afternoon. I'm not sure how long we talked, but it was probably at least an hour. It was the first time we had conversed since January.

Also got an email from Sandra today with her new address. She and Jason are living for the time around London, but I guess they're going to be moving to Germany later this year. She also made mention something about a baby, but I don't know any of the details on that.

I have to finish reading War and Peace by Thursday because we're taking the midterm then, and the test is about 90% on that book. I've been reading today, but I still have 350 pages left - and I'm a slow reader. Also have to write a short research paper for Tom's class by Wednesday.I had wanted to work on the Bergman class this weekend, but I guess I'll have to leave that for spring break along with my senior paper. I want to clean around here also, but we'll have to wait and see if I ever actually get that far.

Thanks in no small part to the hordes of people searching for it, the Too Much Trivia in the Pants website is now the #1 search query return on both Google and Yahoo! for "too much booty in the pants." Thank you frat boys and sorority girls the nation over!

Stupid quotes I've heard lately, take 1: "Defenders of guns can intelligently argue that, as with fast cars, the pleasures of gun ownership are worth the increased mortality." Intelligently argue? Yeah, and just like people in the article from The New York Times argue, guns are definitely going to save us from terrorist attacks too. Yeah, like that plane that crashed that could have been avoided had someone on board snuck on a gun or someone on the ground should have been able to shoot it down? Yeah, and that possible spread of smallpox? Damn straight a gun is going to protect you! I just can't get over how moronic the people in America really are. It might not even happen during my lifetime, but I think the writing is all over the wall that the United States is going to destroy itself within the next few generations. Our own people are a million-times greater threat to our own livelihood than any terrorists could ever hope to be. Stupid stupid stupid.

We watched Joyless Street in class last night. The 16mm print had no score. The film was missing plenty and was hard enough to follow, but coming off only 3 hours of sleep the night before, it was even harder. It's not that the movie was that bad, it's just that it was hard to get through. Not surprisingly, I didn't sit up all that late last night. I think I got a decent amount of sleep, and now it's time to get ready for my day. I don't have to, but I'm going to go to work anyway this afternoon. I guess they have some crap work I can do if I want to. Heh - money's money. I have to read War and Peace this weekend. Not just a few pages; I have to read the last 450 pages. If I finish, I can get started on the research paper that's due on Wednesday. Fun fun midterms.

I'm sick, twisted, and going straight to Hell.

Instead of working on homework for the last two hours like I should have been, I spent the time listening to girltalk. The last two nights I've heard lots of giggling and occasional loud outbursts of speech coming from the apartment downstairs, which eventually picqued my interest enough to want to know what was going on. So, I pulled out a microphone, my amplifier, and my headphones and set up an impromptu contraption. I set the microphone up so it was pointing into the hole where the radiator comes up out of the floor, cranked up the volume on the amp, and listened through my headphones for the next two hours. When I first started listening, it sounded like a small party was just getting over. There were probably about five women and one guy with a lisp discussing the contents of the fridge and liquor cabinet. Some of them left shortly thereafter, so most of the time I was listening to only three women. I was really hoping for some juicy gossip, but it never really got too interesting. Topics of conversation included: A.I., Planet of the Apes, a friend's trip to Vegas with Tim Roth, Harry Potter and Alan Rickman, "Buffy," bad fake British accents, Laurence Fishburne in The Matrix, To Wong Foo..., Armageddon, Nick Cage, the Batman movies, comic books, and the easy profitability of sci-fi and horror movies and books. Apparently one or more of them works in a video store, and at least one of them does some sort of acting. They were doing practice readings and discussing doing tv commercials. I have no idea who the girl who lives downstairs, but now I know way too much about she and her friends. Yep - sick, twisted, and going straight to Hell.

Man, the Vikings are fucked. Robert Griffith, the only partially-decent player on what might have been the league's worst defense has signed a contract with the Browns, leaving the team with no defense whatsoever. People thought the Lions had a bad season last year, but just wait to see how horrible the Vikings are now next year. It might be a little early to start making predictions for the 2002 season, but unless the Vikings have an amazing college draft, look for them to finish last in the division, with the Lions in third and the Packers and Bears duking it out once again for the division title. Speaking of the 2002 season, I can think now of no reason why anyone would watch Monday night games. You know, Dennis Miller and Dan Fouts weren't perfect, but I can't imagine having to sit through John Madden every Monday night. Al Malmberg actually thinks Madden and Al Michaels will be a good match! I hope Malmberg will pack me a bowl of whatever shit he's been smoking, because it must be damn good. Madden is the most annoying person in national sports coverage. I'd rather listen to those Sportscenter jackasses and their inane sayings than Madden. I don't think the guy even know what city he's in most of the time anymore. These last two years I actually looked forward to coming home and listening to Al, Dan, and Dennis, but I guess that's over. Hiring Madden - bad, bad move ABC. Then again, they are home to both "The Mole" and "The Chair."

I left my class early tonight. After watching Fifteen Minutes, I had a pretty good idea what Tom was going to talk about. I was right. The weekly lecture on three act structure wouldn't have been so bad if the two ass-kissers in the front row didn't have to open their mouths every thirty seconds. I got up to wander the building and waste time, but I kept telling myself my intent was to get a roll of toilet paper so the ass-kissers could wipe their faces when they were done. When I came back, I sat in a chair in the back by the TAs and listened in as Tom had finally moved on to the next part of the lecture. That lasted barely 5 minutes. Tom was talking about the power of the media, which brought him to the Scopes trial. I swear to God nobody in the room seemed to know what the Scopes trial is. I looked around the room, and when I saw 70 heads bow to look at 70 hands holding 70 pens to write notes about the motherfucking Scopes trial on 70 notebooks, I knew my time to exit for the evening had come. It's times like these that make me embarrassed to admit I'm a college student.

Today has been a considerable quieter day than any of those last week, for which I am very grateful. I woke up this morning still rather tired, but unable to fall back asleep, and very much in the knowledge that I have a number of tasks I intended to complete today. Craving a warm breakfast (all I have for breakfast food is cereal), I hopped in my car and drove to the nearest BK. The girl at the register muffed my order and overcharged (and for some reason I didn't say anything), but then the girl who was bagging the order misread the order ticket and gave me twice as much food as I had ordered. So, since I had overpaid anyway, I said nothing, took my bags, and came home. After "The McLaughlin Group" and a little more of whatever else was on tv shortly thereafter, I moved on to my homework, making a small dent in the remaining pages of War and Peace while listening to Cosmic Slop. I intend to return to it later, but first I'm going to take a bath and then work on the assignments for The Seventh Seal and Wild Strawberries. I'm liking this Sundays off thing. Maybe after the festival I'll let Nicole work every Sunday and I'll sit home and lounge around in my underwear all day listening to the radio and doing homework.

Here's the latest list of search engine searches which have brought people to BlueFlower.org:

• where can i read the biography of the band 12 rods
• liverpool f.c tatoos
• film studies - james stewart
• abdominizer (twice)
• precious moments tatoos

Hmmm... me thinks I could use Precious Moments tatoos. They'd go well with listening to The Root of All Evil (like I'm doing right now).

Holy bajeezus is it cold outside! I can stand cold weather, but when you have a north wind blasting in as strong and cold as we have tonight, man, that's nuts. Molly and I were treated to a nice greeting by the wind as we left Suburban World tonight, where we had gone to see Driver 23 and The Atlas Moth. For as much hype as Driver 23 gets locally, I have to say I was actually a little disappointed in seeing it for the first time. Atlas Moth I found more boring and I fell asleep for most of it. I don't know that I really like Suburban World either. It was the first time I'd been in there, and it looks as though it was once a beautiful theater. Now it's been destroyed by making it a cinema cafe. Of course, the other people around us were as much entertainment as the films themselves, including the group of young Uptown lesbians sitting in front of us kissing and the chuckles during the films coming from the table where Rolf Belgum and Dan Cleveland (director and star of the films respectively) were sitting. Speaking of those present, man, Nate Johnson has his hand in every pie in town. I don't know if he has a part in programming at Suburban World also or not, but he was introducing the films when we showed up. The man gets around and knows how to network.

I'm here in the computer lab in Folwell trying to clear out the film society's inbox. I've deleted over 9,000 emails so far since I got here. I got to the office about 11:15 this morning for the sake of being present for the festival staff photos. They're working right now on scheduling films in the festival, but here I am doing the fun work of playing with the faster internet connection to keep the inbox clear for "real" emails. Of the over 9,000 emails I found in the inbox, only 2 have been legit so far. Fun fun. Not sure what my plans are for the rest of the day. I do know that I'm pretty hungry right now, having not eaten anything so far today.

And so continues the melodrama that is my life. A tech for Qwest showed up at my apartment at 9:30 Thursday morning. He came up, checked my phone line, and left. I went to class and work and class again, finally returning home about 9:30. I tried to sign on to do my web entry for Rick's class, but what should I find but that I have no dial tone. Fuck. I went down to Jonathan's and borrowed his phone to call Qwest, but their customer service people don't work 24 hours like they should. So, I had no phone.

I got up this morning, got dressed, and got to work about 9:30. I spent 45 minutes bouncing around between operators at Qwest, during which time I talked to 10 different people. That doesn't tell you how many lifeless computer systems I had to deal with as well. At one point I even moved full-circle, having talked to someone in repairs who said they couldn't help me and later returning to repairs. The problem lay in that Qwest computer system didn't recognize me as a Qwest customer, yet the work order said that the job (of switching me back) was complete. So, I kept bouncing around between people and computers who said they couldn't help me because I wasn't listed as a customer, those who told me they couldn't help me because I needed to talk to the people about acquiring new service, those who couldn't help me because the work said it was completed, the business office, and mindless operators who accidentally hung up on me when they meant to transfer me. Eventually, nearly in tears of frustration, I got the repair people to send a guy out this afternoon and finish the job. Even Qwest computers said that I had a dial tone despite the fact that I had none. The last guy I talked to determined that there was an error elsewhere, and that's what they were going to fix.

I went to Folwell to do my web entry and download and delete some of the hundreds of returned emails we've gotten (there's some error in an email address we sent in the film society's newsletter that is causing us to receive thousands of "delivery-failure" emails per hour). Between schlepping and trying to throw together a poster and postcards for Kandahar (because it opens next Friday and Adam is out ill), I didn't end up being ready to leave work until late. I ran the postcards and one-sheet up to the Bell, but by the time I got back to the office, Al and Kyle were gone already and the office was locked. My keys for the office are locked in the office. So is my bag (with address book, important notebooks, etc.), my gloves, and my scarf. Luckily I and others have to go into the office tomorrow morning, so I can retrieve them all then. After waiting around for Kyle to return, stopping by the Bell to see if he was coming back, and getting word from Chris that Kyle had headed home, I gave up and came home myself. It was about 7:30 then. I'm hungry. And tired. Poop.

The head of undergraduate studies for the Department of German, Scandanavian, and Dutch sent out an email about a senior appreciation dinner. Of course, I can't go because they chose to have it on a Wednesday night. Crapola. I also looked into the May session Icelandic course. It's a 6 week course, with the first 2.5 weeks at the U and the other 3.5 weeks in Reykjavík. The price? $3,600. That's pretty steep for a 6 week course where almost half is here at the U. So, of course I'm going to have to pass on that one. Grrr....