I could try not to love these shoes, but it would be a waste of time. Also, Negra Modelo is really good. I have seen the error of my youthful (Corona drinking) indiscretions, and have changed my ways accordingly.
As of tomorrow, I have four and a half days to get ready to go back to DC. That means doing things like cleaning, laundry, and packing. Bah.
Tonight, I am going to a Converse store that sells only Converse. It will be a pilgrimage, or a quest - I haven't decided. But either way I shall come back with shoes, which I shall put on my feet.
Last week, my mother showed me a booklet of coupons for school supplies from an office supply store. "Sexy," is what I said to her in response. Every once in a while I like to surprise her, but not by calling from the ER, a police station, or an abandoned building. She thought this exchange was amusing enough to relate to her colleagues at the Passionist Bros. Catholic retreat center where she works.
Yesterday I promised Mister Bones that we would make him new peanut butter dessert cookies and sew the squeaker heart back into his moose. The moose is closely related to his camel-with-two-humps-and-no-head, because apparently in the world of dog toys moose and camels are in the same family, and he'd had it for approximately five minutes before he'd ripped its heart out. Anyway, I had the genius idea of taking a nap from 1045 am to 1145 am, when I was supposed to wake up to continue the process of waterproofing my green messenger bag. Instead, I woke up sometime around 11 pm. This may have had something to do with not sleeping in a few days, but now I have so many things to today - all of yesterdays thing and all of todays things. But I can't find the upholstery thread I need in order to sew together the Moose with no heart, which means that so far this enterprise isn't going well.
The day before yesterday I seized on what little free time my father had to make him go with me to buy Hello Kitty notebooks for school. Remember kids: hunting for Hello Kitty school supplies is always five hundred times more fun with a whiny mexican who pretends he doesn't want to be there but actually does! So now I have five Hello Kitty notebooks which will undoubtedly unsettle some of my classmates and professors while also making my classroom experience exponentially more amusing.
Some of them have pink pages with little apple & Hello Kitty designs in a slightly darker pink. I shall purchase some no nonsense black clicky pens to write on them - the kind I liked to use in Chem, Physics, and Calc. I shall also have to purchase some pen refills for my Hello Kitty pens for use on those days when the combination of Hello Kitty Pen with Hello Kitty notebook is more amusing than the combination of no nonsense black clicky pen with Hello Kitty notebook. Good times. Accompanying this post is a particularly imposing photo of Healy Hall at Georgetown. Hello Kitty school supplies are also amusing in combination with Healy - I would know. Also, for the record - my father was the one who spotted the Hello Kitty washcloths. I didn't even know they were there.
I never want to hear the words "yule ball dress" ever again; if I do, it will be too soon. Also I keep dreaming about blueberry free coffee shops. Apparently this is the form my withdrawal has now taken - it's been two and a half months since I've had coffee, but the start of school is so close I can smell it. 'It' = the coffee, of course.
Firefly - that famously mistreated tv show by Joss Whedon. I watched it on Fox when it first came out, but because they were airing the episodes out of order in the worst way possible, none of it made sense. So I stopped watching. The first and only season is available on Hulu, and after watching the episodes in order, I realized how amazingly good it is. Also, I'm a sucker for space frontier shows.
On June 21st, the WashPo ran an article about the fabulous invincible Houston economy: Houston's Pipelines of Prosperity: In Oil Industry Hubs, High Energy Costs Bring More Growth Than Pain. The article is kind of ridiculous, and overstates the differences between Houston's economic state and everyone else's. "Pipelines of Prosperity"? Seriously? That rivals some of the ridiculous newspaper headlines from The Hoya, one of the Georgetown student papers. However, re the Houston economy, the WashPo piece isn't entirely off.
Compare it with this article that the Houston Chronicle ran on June 17th: Making sacrifices to beat the pump: Houstonians find new ways to get from point A to B. This article is so ridiculously whiny I couldn't read it all in one sitting. The gas prices here aren't all that high compared to the rest of the country, much less the rest of the world - between three and four dollars. The SUV's and trucks, notorious for low mpg, still overwhelm more sensible vehicles on the road, although sales are slowing. I really like the bold subheading "Sacrifices", underneath which is a discussion of activities people in other cities already do anyway. Horrible things like riding bicycles, taking public transportation, carpooling, and planning out errands efficiently.
Okay, in all fairness, the state of public transportation in this city is deplorable. It is, however, improving. People who don't have to take the more far flung commuter bus lines are fine, though. Biking isn't great either - aside from the formidable summer heat, many places don't have side walks or cross walks. When they do, the drivers are so unused to pedestrians and bikers that the situation is still dangerous anyway. I considered living in Montrose or at least keeping a bike there while I was attending the University of St. Thomas, but even that neighbourhood would barely be able to sustain the kind of pedestrian/bicycling/public transportation focused lifestyle I'm accustomed to.
On June 24th, the Houston Chronicle published an article that theoretically rebuffed the perspective asserted by the WashPo article and others: Don't buy national hype over Houston's economy. It kind of sort of attempts to rebuff them, that is, but it kind of sort of doesn't. I'm not really a fan of the local rag. Reading it is the surest way to make me even grumpier at any time of day.
One last note on fuel costs - my father drives a Honda Civic Hybrid. It will be cheaper this year to drive me from Houston to DC than it would be to buy me a plane ticket. Also it will be more convenient - Continental has dropped non stops from Houston to DC, although I have hopes that they will resume again in a year or so after their alliance with United is ironed out.
Opera 9.5 is sweet like a sweet sweet thing. It's wickedly fast, and I've experienced only one glitch. I had to update my Gmail pop information; but from what I understand that isn't necessarily a bad/unexpected thing.
I'm not homeless anymore! I have housing for next year. Oddly, it is in the same building on the same floor, but across the hall. Or maybe that will just be familiar, as it will mimic my housing from 1st and 2nd years.
Speaking of not being homeless, my view isn't as expensive. No Potomac. That's okay though, because the room is nearly the same size. It has three fewer inches on the wall where I had five extra inches of space. Officially, this single occupancy room size is known as 'a whole lot of room'.
I need to do something productive today, but I'm not sure what that's going to be. I do think mint tea should be involved, though.
Is it healthy to be this excited about a browser? Do I care?
E D Hill is a moron. Yes, I know she works (worked?) for Fox News, and so I should expect her to be a moron. However, the phrase 'terrorist fist jab' goes above and beyond most normal measures of Fox News idiocy. It is so stupid that it made me forget for almost a full day that the NYT refuses to call a fist bump a fist bump and uses silly other phrases instead. Even if she didn't write it, she still read it off of the teleprompter without hesitation. The sheer epic scope of this idiocy is such that I cannot possibly express it with words.
Also, Miss Manners is a bright spot in the dark dark universe.
I can't quite decide what I think of this movie. It isn't crap. Rotten Tomatoes has it at a 66%.
It isn't good enough that I can't watch it without multi tasking, though. After a while the neurotic-ness of the neurotic character gets trying, especially since he's really just a stereotype. The whole movie is kind of a stereotype, but a bit more subtle about it than most.
As long as I have a laptop and an internet connection, it's enjoyable enough, though.
I'm thinking of applying for a weekend preview thing at Harvard Divinity School. Worst case scenario I'm out a stamp and some time spent reflecting on my life's goals; best case scenario I get a free trip to Cambridge, Mass. Acceptable losses. That means I would need to start on that application, though, and get it done well before it's due in September. At some point in next semester, I have to edit a term paper and submit it for an award, preferably before Fall 2008 finals. Ok, that's not actually that much.
Mister Bones has a refugee look. He sits, extends his neck, hangs his head down, and pulls back his ears so that he looks thinner and you can see more of the whites of his eyes. Then he just looks at you. Sadly. Like a refugee. I should enter him in a talent contest.
I should probably start editing that essay sometime this week. By editing I don't mean editing, of course, but striking through random paragraphs for rewrite and then letting it sit for a month. Of course.
I finally got around to seeing Charlie Wilson's War this morning. It was good - I especially enjoyed the many loving shots of things blowing up midair. I was also reminded that the eighties were scary for many reasons, none of which have to do with communism, Russia, or Afghanistan. Also, East Texas is scary. I won't even bother with the analysis of how it's especially timely.
The best parts are those with Philip Seymour Hoffman, natch: Mister Bones is an advanced cuddler, by the way - right now the left half of my body is immobilized by sleepy happy dog. Speaking of dogs, I think the dogs in the movie are Whippets, but I'm not sure.
The hair is still painfully bad.
I finally have a grade for my last class, which is great - I can stop worrying now. I definitely made Second Honors which is nice considering my only goal this semester was to not get kicked out of school. Also, I have housing! Yay! Now I just have to contact people so they can do things and I can get a specific room. Maybe tomorrow.
That's what it says in the spot where my fourth grade should be - just NR. NR = Not Reported. This sort of worries me - that was the one where I got an extension, and then went over the extension a little bit. On the other hand, my professor never emailed me to tell me something was wrong. I also know that professors are generally expected to have a seventy two hour turn around on final grades. For a test, this seems okay. But for fifteen to twenty essays, which are themselves fifteen to twenty pages, this seems unfair. Three days to read and grade 225 to 400 pages seems like it would take a herculean effort. And that's just for one class, not multiple classes. In this class, the essay is half of our grade. Three days seems a little aspirational, at the least.
I didn't feel like raising GUAS from the ashes today either. Last night I was watching television because I couldn't stand to look at my computer screen any longer. I spent about nine or ten hours yesterday working on the website and the listproc. Unlike some people who are silly heads who live in Bronxian stomping grounds, I actually like the new site better, and not just because I made it. It has fewer colours and photos, but in my mind that adds up to visually and aesthetically simpler, and therefore more desirable. Take that Joe! Just kidding. I agree that the last site was quite good. For this one, we have no choice but to use a template, and the template is not very customizable. I expect that this is to make it simpler for people who don't build websites, and even out the playing ground for all the professors, departments, organizations, etc. THe only real customization I can do besides the header is with html in the text, and by embedding photos and videos. Even the photos can't be hosted on the site though - the only way it works is by putting them on a flickr stream and using the code. That's strange, but okay. I might just set up a flickr stream for the organization to make it simpler.
The first photo is of Mister Bones helping with the dishes. Mostly he helps by getting in the way or by licking plates as they're loaded into the dishwasher. He looks confused and sad here, because I had just thrown out food instead of giving it to him. Mister Bones doesn't believe in the concept of food going bad, and therefore not being suitable for eating. The second photo is of Mister Bones helping me blog. As you can see, he helps me blog by sitting on my bed and touching my nose with his nose. He slept all day today, until my parents pulled into the driveway in their hippie car, and then he woke up and ran to the front door to meet them when they came in. This morning we made more progress with chomping and dragging. After a round of chomp chomp I showed him how to chomp on my dad's arm and then drag my dad towards me. Then he did it all by himself. Yay for progress! Much like Mister Bones, I also slept all day. I think the sleep deprivation from finals has caught up to me, and I've run out of adrenaline. That's fine - after I sleep it off I'll feel better and return to a normal schedule. Today was a day of being a bum, and it was great. Now I'm going to go continue reading Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster. I bought it months ago, but was too busy with school to start it until I got on the plane home.
So I am at home now. One of the comforts of home that I can enjoy this summer is television. My parents switched cable providers in my absence, and now we have more channels.
Earlier I watched about five or seven minutes of Queer as Folk on LOGO, as a sort of anthropological experiment. It was very dated and contrived; I felt like I was watching Saved by the Bell.
There is a guy on The Daily Show discussing Obama's preacher in context, but not really in context. From what I hear, some of the religious figures McCain associates with are crazier.
Now I've been distracted from The Daily Show by the Science channel. They have a silly logo that is meant to look like a periodic table box with an atomic symbol. The program is about the Solar System, and totally more interesting to me than The Colbert Report. I'm fairly sure that fact means I'm supposed to be having some kind of college-student-quarter-life-crisis-identity-freak-out right now. Oh well.
Today was actually rather productive. I finished tweaking the brand new GUAS website, and I'm rather proud of myself. I've never actually done anything like that before, beyond the occasional HTML markups on this blog. Except that they aren't really HTML, because they use []'s instead of <>'s and slightly different tags. Anyway, I am particularly pleased with the header; this makes up for some nagging technical issues that aren't currently in my power to fix. Joe and I figured out the error problem on the GUAS listproc, so now I'm the only person who gets them, and after today I won't have to send out anymore spam test messages. There is one more thing I want to test, but it can wait.
I am almost done with the first season of 30 Rock. And because now on the Solar System program they are discussing the possibility of water on other planets (and therefore carbon based life forms) I will link to this AP write up of an interview by Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, S.J. with L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican's newspaper. Rev. Funes is the director of the Vatican Observatory, and discusses the implications of the possibilities of extraterrestrial life for Catholic teachings. Apparently this (aliens) is also one of those things that people get irrationally worked up about.
I seem to be particularly enamored of the bold tag today.
EDIT - Today for breakfast I had scrambled eggs, wheat toast with butter and grape jelly, bacon, and orange juice. This is notable because the eggs tasted like eggs, the toast tasted like toast, the bacon tasted like bacon, and the orange juice tasted like orange juice. Eating non institutional food is like eating for the first time. Everything tastes delicious. Kraft Mac & Cheese is even better when you have fresh grated cheese to toss into it.
EDIT EDIT - I have made this entire post courier new. Because I felt like it. And that might be my favourite font right now - see the GUAS website header.
Yes, I totally just stole Joe's blog post title. I did that because now that I'm back in Texas, I, much like Joe, am being a bum. This mostly involves watching 30 Rock and taking naps with Mister Bones. He still does that thing where he stretches out and uses a pillow for his head. Sometimes he flops his ears over his eyes.
Last night I finally saw Hot Fuzz - it was not at all what I expected. Actually, it was better than I expected.
I met J-- for dinner Saturday night after cleaning up my room as much as possible without a vacuum. We had end of semester Wisey's in the LXR Underground. Technically the LXR Underground may be the Neville's common room, but it's difficult to tell. It is totally awesome though. We went to N---'s Rocky Horror party, which was very much the type of party N--- might throw. J-- and I were falling asleep and had places to be early in the morning, though, so we left early.
I totally didn't miss my plane, although I did have to repack my suitcase in the middle of the airport. It was over the weight limit, which is stupid when you consider that I was still taking the same amount of stuff, just in two bags. Although, it isn't stupid when you consider that at some point, someone has to be able to lift that bag. I could lift it though.
Right now Mister Bones is having a dream, and he's barking in his sleep. Except not really, because it sounds more like a broken squeaky toy sound, but they're clearly supposed to be barks.
My shoulders do not fit in airplane seats. This is very uncomfortable. The baby carrots and kit kat bar almost made up for it. (Hint: not really)
Before watching Hot Fuzz last night, we had to do mothers day things. These really just consisted of eating dinner outside. Dinner, by the way, was amazing, as it was totally the first real food I've eaten since easter. Negro Modelo, chocolate dipped strawberries, and steaks were involved.
I thought Mister Bones' cookies might have been crushed on the airline, but they weren't. I didn't realize until I took them out of my bag to show my father that they had garlic powder in them as well as peanut butter. So Mister Bones got a garlic powder peanut butter cookie, and then got to go around and lick everyone with his garlic powder peanut butter breath. Good stuff.
Assorted extras: noone knows what happened to Mister Bones' volleyball I got my third grade back, out of four - it is better than I thought it would be! I saw K----, at church, briefly, in between the airport and home my cat hates you we have new cable - with BBCAmerica later I will write a post about how I know my parents are hippies
The day before yesterday I seized on what little free time my father had to make him go with me to buy Hello Kitty notebooks for school. Remember kids: hunting for Hello Kitty school supplies is always five hundred times more fun with a whiny mexican who pretends he doesn't want to be there but actually does! So now I have five Hello Kitty notebooks which will undoubtedly unsettle some of my classmates and professors while also making my classroom experience exponentially more amusing.
I didn't feel like raising GUAS from the ashes today either. Last night I was watching television because I couldn't stand to look at my computer screen any longer. I spent about nine or ten hours yesterday working on the website and the listproc. Unlike some people who are silly heads who live in Bronxian stomping grounds, I actually like the new site better, and not just because I made it. It has fewer colours and photos, but in my mind that adds up to visually and aesthetically simpler, and therefore more desirable. Take that Joe! Just kidding. I agree that the last site was quite good. For this one, we have no choice but to use a template, and the template is not very customizable. I expect that this is to make it simpler for people who don't build websites, and even out the playing ground for all the professors, departments, organizations, etc. THe only real customization I can do besides the header is with html in the text, and by embedding photos and videos. Even the photos can't be hosted on the site though - the only way it works is by putting them on a flickr stream and using the code. That's strange, but okay. I might just set up a flickr stream for the organization to make it simpler. 
The first photo is of Mister Bones helping with the dishes. Mostly he helps by getting in the way or by licking plates as they're loaded into the dishwasher. He looks confused and sad here, because I had just thrown out food instead of giving it to him. Mister Bones doesn't believe in the concept of food going bad, and therefore not being suitable for eating. The second photo is of Mister Bones helping me blog. As you can see, he helps me blog by sitting on my bed and touching my nose with his nose. He slept all day today, until my parents pulled into the driveway in their hippie car, and then he woke up and ran to the front door to meet them when they came in. This morning we made more progress with chomping and dragging. After a round of chomp chomp I showed him how to chomp on my dad's arm and then drag my dad towards me. Then he did it all by himself. Yay for progress! Much like Mister Bones, I also slept all day. I think the sleep deprivation from finals has caught up to me, and I've run out of adrenaline. That's fine - after I sleep it off I'll feel better and return to a normal schedule. Today was a day of being a bum, and it was great. Now I'm going to go continue reading Brooklyn Follies by Paul Auster. I bought it months ago, but was too busy with school to start it until I got on the plane home.
July 2008September 2008
