I used to like Mondays

I wake up this morning 3 times because I have to pee, walking through the kitchen in the dark without my glasses 3 TIMES to the bathroom on the other side of the house. The last time I was actually awake to do my morning routine, so my glasses are on as I come out of the bathroom, and I reach down to change the cat's food and see this mutha-...er waiting for me.

Yes, I've used the picture before. No, it's not the actual spider, just a small reproduction of the GIANT NUCLEAR TEST AREA INSECT that was staring me down. It was bigger than Veda's head. It was so big, we could leash it and take it for walks. We could put a saddle on it and run it before judges at the fair. If you wanted to call it, you'd have to look up its f...ing country code. And I had walked past it, over it, brushed against it, traded witty bon mots with it 3 TIMES without even knowing it.

But it was in the kitchen and in the kitchen it's bad luck to kill a spider. "If you want to live and thrive, let a spider stay alive." Don't ask me, I just know that to kill it I would have to get something really big and certain, like the car, to make sure it died and then I'd have bad luck for all that trouble. Worth it? Perhaps not.

So I got the big Watney's Red Barrel pint round and trapped it. I put Saran Wrap on the top and poked it full of holes until the cousin could get up and take him outside.

Then I vomited.

Then I called the tow truck guy to come pick up the Honda because the clutch didn't work and I thought I'd be smart, right? Help him. Move it from the driveway into the street, right? So I let it roll and it gets stuck there with the back end sticking out into the street. I think ... "hmm ... maybe I can get it into reverse," and I could, but then it would stall when I let up on the clutch because the clutch didn't work. Remember how the clutch doesn't work? Yeah, so then I got the shift stuck in reverse with the car sticking out into the street. My neighbor left her house and drove away as though I wasn't even there. Thanks, neighbor. So I'm playing classics of 1960's Hindi films until her dog barks itself hoarse.

But then, after working and fretting and trying not to worry about finding other spiders in the house, we get home (eventually, by many means, but without the car) and put in A History of Violence and that, my friends, made me believe in film again. God bless us everyone.

At least you've got your health

I like the Wii Fit, don't get me wrong. I like when it tells me my Wii Fit age is 22, because that's pretty satisfying. But it's a real jerk sometimes. It asked me today if I wanted to "review my sleep habits," which I've done before. It consists of the machine asking you how many hours you sleep at night and then telling you how wrong that is. So I said "No." "Well, you might want to think about it." This is a plastic board that sits on the floor telling me this. It shut up when I scored perfect on the walking test. Usually it asks if I trip when I walk.

So that's how I start my day, followed by a trip to my bathroom where the fan -- I swear -- smells like BO when it runs. The cousin/roommate doesn't believe me.
"It smells like a taxi driver."
"Oh yeah, what's his name?"
"Harvey."
"Does he have a beard?"
"Yes."
"So what's his sign?"
"Scorpio, maybe Saggitarius."
"You're making it up, K. I don't smell a thing."

Okay, so I don't care about my sleep habits, I'm Wii 22 and I'm crazy. Boh. And my platelets dropped to 39, but my weight dropped to 140, so there's a kind of Zen balance there.

I started to scan the photos. Here's one of my great-grandmother. Mom says she looks like me, but I think we just have the same way of pursing our lips (she tends to keep her eyes open).


And this little cutie is my grandmother (before she hit the Busby Berkeley chorus line):

It's so funny how pictures capture kids' expressions that you later see in them as adults. I don't think any of us really changes. We all just get taller.

Instant Karma's Gonna Git You

This is what I get for starting the morning with a rant.

This was the first experience and it was actually with a co-worker. He came back later and got me and said the same thing, but it was much longer. This was shorter and you get this gist (all typos are verbatim):

Is this your first visit?
Visitor: yes
Great! We appreciate the opportunity to assist you! How can I help you today?
Visitor: The new "Dixon Ticonderoga" are junk. I just bought 2 boxes of each.
Did you buy them from us? What is your order number please?
Visitor: I don't remember. That's not the point. The point is that you're pedaling cheap Chinese junk, and passing if off as known quality mdse.
I'm sorry you are unhappy with the product--
Visitor: If you thik passing the junk as quality mdse, you are a young modern that should not have your job. If you choose to not answer me, it won't change my opinion. I will look for qulity elsewhere. You and your low quality company can look for customers that don't know any better. Don't try to pass this off with sarcastic comments. Try doing your job and pass along my criticism.
Visitor: I am the customer! For a fact!

He concluded this with "End of Message" and then told me that co-worker had hung up on him.

He gave us his name later and it turned out that he had purchased them from someone else -- for a fact! -- and most of my chat time with him was trying to convince him of this. He was a retired former Federal employee, so who the hell was I to tell him he was wrong? Some young modern, I guess.

Politics and Religion

I keep hearing people complain about how Obama's not "doing anything," especially the Christian Coalition co-worker who sits behind me and likes to bark along with her blaring right-wing radio programs, carping on and on about how the Democrats fought so hard to get into office and what have they done? What? Have? They? Done? And how she hopes there will be a town-hall meeting in Eugene so she can go and shout down her congressman.

For the love of God.

Here are some reminders so you can follow along:

Your man got us into this mess. He got us into the war, into a shite economy, into people getting thrown out of their homes and losing health care.
Your party's policies have made it impossible to pull yourself up without government assistance -- yes, that bad ol' government who should stay out of the lives of its citizens and can't now because you expect it to save the lives of its citizens.
Your man had 8 years to do this.

Our man's been on the job since January. No, not vacationing in Texas and playing golf -- he's actually on the job. He's just started untangling the knot that your man created and he's got a lot on his plate right now. He's got to start unraveling your junk while still trying to manage the new junk that keeps coming in. And if you want to go downtown and shout down your congressman for not being the Magic Man, then go right ahead and let everyone else see what a great big moron you are. Go on, ask them why they haven't fixed the economy that apparently just turned bad in January because it was so great before that.

Oh, and before I forget, cops asking for color on a suspect description IS racial profiling, and if Prof. Gates wants to "throw the race card" it's not unfair, it's what whitey has been doing for over 200 years. (Old news? Ask anyone in Oregon who isn't white.)

Full Moon? Yes.

Actual phone conversation (with some security changes) that just happened:

Me: -------------.com, this is li'l hateful.
Customer: Yeah, my order is 79490.
Me: I'm sorry, that's not one of our order numbers. Was this ordered from ------------.com?
Customer (barking): Who else would I have ordered it from?!
Me (tries to read mind. fails): I don't know. What's your name?
Customer: Jim L------.
Me (checks order database): I'm sorry, I don't show that you've ordered from us. What is the item?
Customer: What good with that do you if you say I didn't order from you???
Me: I can get you a phone number for someone who can help if I know what this is regarding.

Customer launches into long involved story about a big and tall executive chair that he ordered on Tuesday, just received, the guys put it in his office, he sat in it, got up to get coffee, came back AND THERE WAS A HOLE IN IT! A HOLE!!!!!

Me: Well, we haven't sold that chair since May, so I --
Customer: Listen, I've got a Staples catalog sitting on my desk. What does that tell you?

(pause to control laughter and snarky response ... fail)

Me: It tells me you ordered it from Staples. Here's their phone number.

*** that was followed by this email from someone else ***

"Our order was received and I am very pleased, thank you. If you had any sort of coupon toward our next hypothetical order, I think I could sell my boss on locking you in as a go-to."

Sure, here's a virtual coupon for your hypothetical order.

Having a Helluva Time. Wish You Were Here

Am I stuck in a perpetual trap of rushing around and not having time to blog? How the hell did I ever find time for school? I wake up, go to work, come home and the day is completely shot. I blame Wii.

So, to recap the last couple of weeks:

art - lovely(That's me with the Hopper - eyes closed, wrong ISO, mom taking at a blurry angle - perfect)

gambled - lost

sunburn - still red(that's my sunburn, yeh. It goes to 11)

back to oregon - hot

family pictures - haven't scanned them
(autograph - JOAN CRAWFORD!!!) (story for Antiques Roadshow - in my head)

photo story - published at last

now - ... ... I forget what I was doing now. Oh well, that about sums it up for this week. Come back again next week when we'll explore the benefits of coffee together.

Still working holiday photos, but in the meantime...

For those of you without Facebook, the big news today is my photo story hit the web as part of the Summer edition of Etude Magazine:

http://etude.uoregon.edu/summer2009/

And, no, in answer to questions in my email already, she has not yet bought a car. "I'm saving," she said. "It's a work in progress now."

I'm celebrating tonight with ice cream and Di Soronno.

And maybe I'll start scanning some stuff, sure...

Have pictures -- too hot to scan them. Too hot to do laundry. Too hot to sleep, eat, breathe, be, blog.

We wait all year for the summer and the first one that comes is BAM just too hot.

Weird that with all the karma flags and well-meaning hippies that Oregon's earned a living hell. Go figure.

Retired

This is the first visit to the parent's house when they've both been retired and it's kind of weird to be the first one up and about. When I was a kid I was the last one out of bed every time. Pop was always up around 5 and out of the house before 6. Now the coffee doesn't even come on until 7 and they're still not awake.

Should I go jump on the bed and pull the covers off like they used to do to me?

I guess they've worked hard enough at the early rise. Retirement means sleep.

Yesterday's trip to the Huntington was long and hot and left me collapsed on the bed when we got back. The car temperature came in at 108 when we were leaving and mom has red legs now because we forgot to spray on the sun screen. But the gardens were lovely and it's always a pleasure to see a Hopper up close (The Last Leg purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr). And they didn't throw us out of the tea room, even though mom had her elbows on the table and I spilled caviar down my sleeve after having already dropped a water cress sandwich on top of the hummus.

But the art ... mein Gott ... they had this lovely item in the Steele Gallery:


This is not my picture of it, since I have to wait until I'm home to download off the Nikon -- it's actually taken off of a Wikipedia page on Augustus Saint-Gaudens. (Wikipedia ... I'm so ashamed.) -- but it's relatively the same as the one we saw. Honestly, Stevenson in bed smoking and writing? How can you not hero-worship the man? The card next to it said he was in bed due to the tuberculosis. What a sugar coat. He had weak lungs, sure, and maybe lighting one cigarette off the other isn't such a good idea when you have weak lungs, but he didn't have TB. He just liked working in bed.

The kids are up and the coffee's done. Time to move on. Today we're going gambling so no lap top and no update until I'm super rich on Friday. WHOO HOO.

Antique's Roadshow?

Pop has boxes of old photos that came out of my grandmother's trailer. He was going to throw them away, but I told him to wait until I got down here so I could go through them all. My eyes are red from the dust and now I can't sleep because among the snappy photos of my grandfather (who was quite a looker -- so was gramma) are the following treasures:

- two tickets to the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics: one for fencing and one for gymnastics
- a program from the games with notes made by grandma on who won what and how
- a whole series of programs from these Catholic conferences they had every year at the Ambassador Hotel, which I was kind of skipping over, to be honest, because who cares, right? The last one, from 1934, has signatures on the front of someone named Mary something with a C, Sid Grauman (Grauman's Chinese Theatre, have ya heard of it?) and Joan Crawford.

Yeah. YEAH. Joan "Mommy Dearest" Johnny Guitar Crawford!

I almost threw up I was so excited. I knew she mixed and matched with Hollywood folk, but this is before grandma was even working in pictures. She was only 17 (gramma not Joan).

Gramma why didn't you tell me? Why why why why didn't you fill my head with stories while you were alive?

I'm getting all of the boxes shipped to me and the scanner will be working over time. I will be creating a new blog with all of this stuff and pictures pictures pictures.

Forget gambling. I've already won.

Going to California for a while. I'll take lovely photos.

See you later ---- oh yeah, go see Moon. It was good n' stuff. If you're in Eugene it's still playing at the Bijou, just don't sit in front of the kids who think "Live and Let Die" was sung by a band called Band on the Rhine. They know not wherefore of they speak.

Saturday Morning's Alright for Fighting

At Costco I persuaded the cousin/roommate to buy Saturday Morning Cartoons 1970s Volume 1. It was cheap and it promised some Yogi Bear, Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch AND the Funky Phantom. What's not to love?

As kids we used to watch the Saturday morning previews of the new cartoons and then the older brother would make us a schedule of what we'd watch -- which sounds really obsessive and weird, but it kept us from fighting ... sometimes. We'd watch ABC (channel 7) until Bugs Bunny came on, and then we'd move to channel 2 all the way through to the live action stuff: Shazam, Isis, and that show about the people driving around in what looked like an elongated styrofoam burger box -- I don't know what it was called, but they solved environmental issues in a post-apocalyptic Earth (it had a monkey and some Robert Foxworth-y looking guy, that's all I remember).

Anyway, so we get this disc set and first we watched it like a treasure box, waiting to see what would come up next, but that requires sitting through some serious crap. The c/r has decided it's better to use the episode guide on each disc, but I'm beginning to think the crap has something to offer as well, if only because it provides such an interesting study of how crappy crap can be.

I know a lot of people pick on Hanna-Barbera -- the backgrounds are bland, the characters are flat, the stories are bad and, in general, movement defies the laws of physics. Friends, you just haven't seen it up against Filmation.

Now, I know you Filmation die-hards are going to bark at me about the use of rotoscoping and live models and the characters have real movement -- hell, they will even sometimes throw in a shadow or two in the opening credits -- but they are the biggest offenders of lazy repeat shots and appear to be complete incapable of producing depth of field.

Hanna-Barbera:













Without even knowing the story, already you can tell it's early in the morning for George, his hair is a mess, he needs a shave, his hands (on arms made of noodle, sure) are in motion, and the detail on the house makes it seem like a Wes Anderson movie over the Michael Bay-ish production of Filmation:













Sure, there's some detail -- we know they're playing Pong (how topical!) and it's maybe in a garage because the background is concrete texture (or it's really old film stock), but it's dead, flat space with, what, 3 colors? Maybe 4 if you count the yellow "GAME OVER" part.

The character detail is just as exciting, perhaps more so:














Successive shots -- that Robin is a pretty intellectual fella. And what's all that happening in the background? Oh yeah, there's NOTHING happening in the background, that's what. If there was they may not be able to use the shot again.

Maybe I should hold off on my opinion until we get the Super Friends series from Netflix. But I can't say anything bad about Aquaman no matter who draws him.

What the hell --- where's summer off to?

Yeah, I'm not getting around to the blog. I'm exercising all the time, and then the cousin's cat died (represented by the "cat" in the drawing of my pet-sitting sleep habits last March) and I really liked that cranky pet, and she (the cousin who had the cranky pet) is moving to Atlanta n' junk and there's all the "last week in Eugene" festivities and packing and garage sales in the heaviest rain since winter, and that Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi was 2-1/2 hours long! and I had to watch the whole thing to see what happened (he was married to her, but disguised as this macho guy, but she didn't recognize him because he wore a moustache as the husband, but then he asks her to cheat on him with his other self ... I love Bollywood) -- so ... yeah ... I thought being done with school meant having all this free time and I don't see the payoff coming.

Although I guess I had some free time not too long ago, but I seemed to have squandered it on ridiculous wasteful habits of sleep and book reading.

I'll try to get one or two posts in before the gambling junket next week. Mom and I are booked for tea at the Huntington Library on Monday (do I get free cake cuz it's my birfday?) and then it's off to Pala to lose at penny slots and get a sunburn. Good times. If I don't get a post in before then, well, now you know what I'll be doing, so the cat's out of the bag.

Oh, the cat out of the bag. She was a good cat. Poor Marosa. I just can't picture her scampering up the Rainbow Bridge. I assume she'll just wait patiently at the steps for her owners to come and tote her over one day.

Going to see Moon tonight. I'll tell you how it is.

Skip a bit if you're tired of Formula 1

Sorry to post F1 stories all the time, but every day I read some f-up story about the people who run it. Chief f-up is Bernie Ecclestone, President and CEO of F1. On July 4th he gave an interview to The Times where he said "that he preferred totalitarian regimes to democracies and praised Adolf Hitler for his ability 'to get things done.'" (You can read the whole thing here.)

Bernie's hit back at criticism, saying that it's all a big misunderstanding:

"I wasn't using Hitler as a positive example, but pointing out that before his dreadful crimes he worked successfully against unemployment and economic problems," said Ecclestone.

The wide-circulation German newspaper (the Bild) asked the Briton if he felt the need to apologise.

"It was never my intention to hurt the feelings of any community," Bernie replied. "Many people in my closest circle of friends are Jewish.

"Anyone who knows me knows that I would never attack a minority," he added.

nice.

Wii played

Rather than pay my rent, I'm going to blog about the weekend.

The cousin/roommate's parents were in town and we showed them a pretty good time -- which translates to: we spent the most of the time inside the house exercising with the Wii. Another set of parents gets seduced by the power of Nintendo. My parents are saving their Social Security up to buy one and now the c/r's folks have gone back to Hawaii with the intention of getting a Wii and the Wii Fit that goes with it. They love the yoga and the push up/plank (I know! who likes that one?) and the fact that it tells them that their Body Mass Index is "normal" while every morning the c/r and I hear "that's overweight" in that child's voice, like a 4 year-old is telling you some obvious yet embarassing truth in the middle of a shopping mall.

They also got into Rock Band, which was fun. We'd never had a vocalist before, but they sold Pat Benatar's "Heartbreaker" solid. Couldn't get them to do Styx's "Renegade" though -- had to sucker the cousin into it.

Now they're gone and we're back at work and we don't get Friday off for some reason, and Saturday is the 4th of July and I'm trying hard not to be cynical because we're a new country now, but I've spent years smirking at "I'm proud to be an AMERICAIN where at least ah know ahm FREEEEEEEEE," so to realize that maybe now, yes, I am kinda proud of my country, it feels a lot like the semi's jack-knifed on the overpass and I'm still waiting for the tow truck to help me straighten out.

Pop goes the King

The death of Michael Jackson makes me sad for the following reasons:

- it has completely over-shadowed Farrah and she had anal cancer ... dude ... all that only to get busted out as top story
- who can fill the tabloids like he could? the virtual wealth, the baby dropping, Prince Michael, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II (aka "Blanket"). Come on, there's no one to take his place, not even Jon and Kate or any of the Housewives rolled together
- his death is referred to on every news story/news cast as "The King of Pop has died today," which means that, yes, when Madonna goes one day we will have to hear "The Material Girl was 87 when she..."
- who gets the Jeff Koons sculpture of Bubbles? And what about 50% of the Beatles songs?
- the movie channels will be playing "The Wiz" all weekend now and I'll never get "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" out of my head
- who had him picked in the third star pool? nobody.
- will this create an even bigger spectacle of public mourning than the death of Princess Di?

I just feel as though there's now this void in the world, sucked clean of the phrase "Wacko Jacko".

It is a sad day.

correction

No mention of Jon and Kate in the office, but I was ripped for not caring that Ed McMahon died. I thought he'd died last year. What do I know?

Down time in the down turn

You'd think I'd have a lot more free time to my day now that school is over.

And you'd be right. I spend a lot of it sleeping, which leads to a general lack of completion for everything else -- although that's not entirely true, since I did manage to finish a book on Sunday, but still, other stuff just can't seem to move up to the top of my list, like buy food or laundry.

I do manage to Wii Fit every day and can't seem to lose a bit of weight, although my Fit age went down to 21 last night. I even did the 10 minute boxing and got a "Good job" out of the boxing Wii (who usually barks at me for not breaking a sweat or tells me that he knows I can do better -- how does he know? He's a Wii). Whatever. Maybe this is my optimal weight or maybe I'm gaining all this incredible muscle and it's making me heavier. Yeah .... that's it.

Jon and Kate are breaking up. I'm sure at work today they'll be berating me for not feeling sorry enough for them. I'm sorry they're getting divorced, although, from what I hear, they weren't exactly happy anyway, but I can't really work up the tears. There are so many other people out there with 8 kids who don't live in big houses and go on paid vacations to the Carribbean. Those people deserve more sympathy than these meatheads. If one of them had a job, maybe I'd think of them as people, but it's like The Bachelor/'ette. I find it really hard to get excited about pretty well-adjusted people trying to find dates. "Oh boo hoo, she had to dump the tan one for the fireman, what a difficult decision. Her life must be hell." That kind of thing.

rrrrar ... I don't even watch that Jon and Kate show. I had no intention of getting involved in their drama. Damn them for being on the cover of US every week. Why? Why?

Blog As News = Rental

This citizen journalism thing is for dopes. I'm going to keep writing about myself and my great life and my great self in my great life. Or maybe comment on exciting international (yet strangely personal) news like this:

F1 faces split as eight teams break away
Eurosport Fri, 19 Jun 11:47:00 2009

Formula One plunged into its biggest crisis in 60 years with eight of the 10 teams announcing plans to set up their own championship.

So long Bernie Ecclestone, you destructive idiot muppet bastard. For years he has run this sport into the ground along with Max Mosley (you remember him, the guy caught on video in the Nazi party with the hookers). I hope this is solid and the teams don't turn back because with them go the sponsors, the drivers and the best cars, and coming back are the great circuits like Indianapolis and Silverstone (which was getting cut after this year) and maybe even a return to South Africa or Mexico.

Man, I wish the US team had jumped in, even if they haven't responded to my resume.

I feel so very different

Whoo! University of Oregon RULES! The dean actually ended the ceremony with "Go Ducks."

Dude.

Yeah, that's my cap. You can't really tell, but it has a glitter sealant keeping the newspaper down. I wanted to be seen n' stuff. There are more pictures in the Flickr. Most of the time I had my eyes closed or my mouth open or both. I tried to pick out pictures that had a little less of that. Sorry, I have a weird face for photos.

So, it's over now and the family and friends have returned to their normal lives -- the brother has called and said he felt "bad" about not being here (I said, "Good.") and he didn't say "badly," so I think I can forgive him. We still have beer and a lot of Diet Coke in the backyard. I just can't bring myself to empty the ice chests. It's silly but I feel as though I'm acknowledging summer by keeping drinks on the porch.

I've been working today and go into the office for reals tomorrow. But school is over and I can read now and maybe watch a movie all the way through in one sitting, I don't know. Do I wish I was going to work for a newspaper? Kind of. We watched Superman last night (geez, I forgot how corny it was and how Valerie Perrine gave it a PG rating) and I was feeling wistful whenever they were in the Daily Planet newsroom. But the pay is lousy and I need to maintain my heady lifestyle of backyard badminton and periodic penny gambling.

Perhaps I will make this a newsy blog and talk about things like the election in Iran and the economy and why it irritates me that Jon and Kate get paid to have cameras follow them around and then complain that cameras follow them around. Yeah ... that's it ... I'll be a CITIZEN JOURNALIST. (reporter - paycheck = blog)

Covah yo ears, dahlin

Stephen Fry in Big Ben (from his Twitter post).

"BigBenBoo" by stephenfry on audioboo.fm

Shared via AddThis

Brilliant

yay. i graduate saturday

Register-Guard lays off 21 employees
The company reduces its work force by 7 percent to cope with ad revenue undercut by the recession
By Ilene Aleshire
The Register-Guard


-- by the way, can you imagine working there and having to write this story?

week

Rescuing the neighbor's dog ... taking finals ... working all day ... cleaning the house all night

and my Wii fit age keeps hitting the 40's! "School is making you old," the cousin/roommate told me. Sheeyah it is. One more day and it's done. Then I'll be in the 20's like he is. You'll see! You'll all see!

Tomorrow I turn in the photo portfolio and take the art final -- the samurai final was a tricky little sucker. Who drew the map in The Seven Samurai? and stuff like that. That one I knew (Kambei) and the one about Kikuchiyo, but Lady Yae in Heaven and Earth? Who's going to remember the girlfriend who dies off-screen as some side-plot? And there were two questions about her. I think I passed okay, but I'm pretty sure I missed a few.

Parents here on Thursday. Of course it's going to rain. Why have sun? Why? Because it was predicted, that's why. Now I'll never hear the end of "It rains all the time there" because for them it does. nuts.

Oh yeah, this just in: the wee brother, apparently still hasn't decided.

That is all.

AIR RAID!

I'm sitting outside at the EMU Amphitheatre enjoying the fruits of being a senior. It's Senior Send Off and I get such great freebies as a rootbeer float in a collector pint glass and a plastic cup of popcorn. I'm surrounded by my fellow seniors, all of us better than those underclassmen who pass us and look in with envy. I'm one with others ---- so why do I still feel like a complete space alien? People still look at me like they're not sure if I'm a student or a parent. I mean, feck, I'm in line, aren't I? I'M ONE OF YOU.

If you give us finals, do we not cry?
If you make us drink a beer bong, do we not belch?

So wipe that face off your heads, bitches, and HIT THE DIRT!

Head. Mush. Editing done. Two multimedia projects done. One due next week. Samurai final next Monday ("Just a reminder: if you fail this you fail the entire course") then Art final as the final final Wednesday. Then Tailhook Convection will be rocking the Rolling Stone challenge in Shanghai. whoo!

Oh yeah, then we're getting a Wii.

"UK singing star Susan Boyle suffering exhaustion"

Honey, I know how she feels.

This multimedia project is a b... I now only have 3 tracks of sound to mix because 5 wouldn't meld into a 2 1/5 minute show, but then I've got to line the mixed sound up with the slideshow so that she's not describing A while we see picture B. Man oh man. I was sitting in front of a Mac for 3 hours yesterday trying to make it work -- that's after spending 5 hours sitting at the office getting told by a-holes on the chat line that I don't really work for the company I work for, I actually work for the company that they were looking for and I just didn't know because I must be new. Man oh man, I can't wait to have weekends off.

But things have improved on the home beautification project (aka: putting crap away). Thanks to the cousin/roommate, we now have a lovely TV stand and soon our records will be in neat shelving units instead of stacked against the walls of the red room. AND we bought a badminton set. We are thisclose to being ready to receive the family -- well, family with the possible exception of the little brother who has to decide whether or not he's coming up for my graduation. I can't get over my pissed-off-ness that he will have to "let me knoe" whether or not he's coming. How painful is that? I went to both of his weddings, no questions asked. At the first one I had to sleep in someone else's bed that had 4 half-filled pints of water hidden at various locations around the sheets. The shower had more hair than I did. I was stoned at his second wedding -- but, still, I was there and in it and performed the role of taxi driver for guests (yeah, it's a mystery why, but people seemed to think I was okay to drive them back and forth to the motel).

But I digress from the rant ... although now I'm not as pissed off because I was remembering what it was like to be stoned. Those were the days.

Maybe he'll change his mind (or make it up or do whatever he needs to do) and come, but the hurt's already happened and I'll probably end up crying either way, because that's what I do.

I really need some sleep. Kel, you're right. I don't know how I do it either. I'm going to wake up next week in one of those Matrix pods and realize it's all been some computer programmed reality, I know it.

Don't Stop Believin'

I've written my last college paper (on Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress -- how cool is that?) and I only have finals left (which include two multimedia slideshows one with 5 levels of audio that still need to be edited), and I still get irritated by low grades on stuff. A frickin' 89 on the last art history exam! It's so unfair. Is it because I mentioned Friedrich before we were quizzed on him? Was I supposed to save that for the final?? 89 ... what a load of ... If I get a B in this class I'll cry. Of course, by the time they get through grading the final I'll be graduated so screw it.

Yeah, I said screw it.

How bitter am I?

The Best News EVER

From the news today:
Guy Ritchie is set to branch out from the world of gangster cinema - the filmmaker is reportedly in Hollywood to begin writing a script for a remake of Guys And Dolls.

The director, best known for his London-based crime films, is said to have roped in movie hardman Jason Statham to show off his vocal talents in a reworking of the classic musical, which originally starred Marlon Brando and Frank Sinatra.

A source tells British newspaper The Sun, "Guy has been on the case with the idea of making a musical recently. He had been throwing ideas around with Jason Statham about writing their own musical.

"Guy has had a lot of meetings with top studio bosses about other projects but the Guys And Dolls idea really tickled him."

But Ritchie could be sticking to a familiar formula when shooting begins - he is apparently considering basing the song-and-dance classic in his native Britain.

The insider adds: "He is torn between keeping the script true to the original in New York and taking it to familiar surroundings in London."

I can't wait until this is out on BluRay -- and it will be because it stars Jason Statham. Maybe it'll even go straight to BluRay.

It's Duff Time

Just got back from the blood doctor -- platelets dropped again, so the no-alcohol experiment has ended in failure.

Which means I'm up for a beer if anyone wants one! WHOO HOO!

yin + yang = beer.

I Loves the Spring

Should I include a picture of the Le Tour in my photo portfolio? How many daimyos can you have in a warrior government? Wasn't Toranaga-san a daimyo when Anjin-san was made samurai? Why can't JMW Turner paint within the lines? Was Goya's Maja Desnuda painted in 1798-1804 or 1803-1806?

Gee, school presents more questions than answers. Better go outside and ride the bike instead.

Helpful Hints

There is no "L" in the word "both" -- it's not pronounced "bolth".
There is a "Y" and an "O" in "crayon" and "mayonnaise" -- it's not pronounced "cran" and "mannaise".

that is all.

The Balkan Girls like to party like nobody, like nobody

Thank you Wuh for reminding me that I've been so busy that I'VE NEARLY MISSED EUROVISION.

I'm just in time to check the first semi-finals, and how happy am I that Romania made it through?

I'm gonna start my weekend with a tonic and lime... and my hips are ready to glow.

Boo

Ferrari kills Kimi's car and then short-fills Massa on fuel, and then Rubens Barrichello is beat back by team orders AGAIN. Formula 1 makes me cry.

This story out of crash.net on Rubens:

"He would remain there all the way to his first pit visit on lap 19, having eked out a small advantage over Button along the way, but unbeknown to him the team had switched the British star to a two-stop strategy during the stops, whilst he had been left on three. That meant that whilst the 36-year-old now had an even greater lead, he would need to push harder still to extend his margin in order to remain ahead at the end of the race, and ultimately it was just too tall an order.

"At one point looking in danger of missing the podium altogether, Barrichello took the chequered flag 13 seconds behind Button in second place – his second rostrum appearance of the season, but one that was scant reward for what he felt should have been his first F1 victory in more than four years. Fastest lap to his credit too was little consolation."

Ay, Rubens ...

Sweet righteousness

So, I had to photo this sports event for the photo journalism class, right? And it's Spring, right? So there's plenty of sports out there, right? Oh except for the ones in other parts of the state and ones that I didn't get a media pass for and the ones that happen on Monday when I have the samurai class. Oh yeah, and then there are the ones that I went to.

AYSO soccer. Friends, don't let anyone tell you that little league is where you get the angry parents. I have never heard someone tell a kid "Now you know what fear will do to you" as an admonishment. Not even my dad said crap like that and he used the old "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about" line. I mean, think about it, this ball is coming for your head and this other kid's ready to kick it and your head, so, yeah, maybe you're going to be afraid, especially if you haven't reached your growth spurt yet and the guy bearing down on you looks like Baby Huey. Do these adults, responsible parents and guardians, care? Hell no.

GET UP! DON'T JUST LAY THERE!
(uh, coach, he's lying there, not laying there)

Then I sat down and filled out my exit questionnaire on the student loan only to come face to face with mortality issues: "Wait, so I have to pay this amount for 10 years or this amount for 25 years and in 25 years I'll be on whatever's left of Social Security, so ... ... Jesus." I had to put down 2 friends as contacts for people who would know where I was in 3 years, which means if I gank on the loan you'll get a call. You can solve for yourself who those 2 friends are. I will pay you in pie if you get hasselled by the gub'ment. I promise ... just like I promise to pay off the loan.

suckers.

weird

I'm trying to watch last week's House, but the school wi-fi is being particularly iffy. At the table next to me are 4 girls comparing Grey's Anatomy with Scrubs.

Weird.

Just overheard: "I don't know if I want to go to Maui this summer or not." God! I know. What to do? What to do?

But in this ever changing world in which we live in

The term's almost over and I just don't think it's going to work out in a pretty fashion. The weekend was spent at a narrative journalism workshop, which was helpful on its own, but not helpful considering all the junk I have to work on this week and the time I missed by being in the classroom. I just sat there playing over in my head all the crap that's due and not done. It's relative to money fear -- that feeling you get on the Wednesday before payday, where you know you've got to get through Thursday with $2.50 in the bank.

In two days I pushed through a paper on Rashomon, (it's due tonight), and an edited news story for tomorrow, a series of portraits for Thursday (psychological photo? They're all psychological -- it's art demmit), we planted vegetables (rain? yes) and I learned how to write about suicide and murder in a narrative fashion. Rich. Full. Weekend.

One day I'll sleep and it will be good.

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blast

When I hear that people are dressing up like Star Wars characters I don't reach for my revolver, but I do tend to get a little leery. I'm used to Trekkies -- well, not used to, but that's what I'm familiar with. Guys like this one who posted a review of the Star Trek BluRay series on Amazon:

"Paramount is the worst. This release is just a thrown together bunch of crap to collect money from trekkers. Face it fellow Federation Members until we unite and stop buying these travesties they will keep rolling merrily along picking our pockets as long as they can. A blu-ray release should include everything we deserve as loyal Star Trek customers who have shelled out hundreds if not thousands each over the years and that means re-mastered theatrical and extended releases with all the extras thrown in. These Paramount Pirates obviously adhere to the Ferengi Rule of Acquisition which states: Sell the sizzle and NOT the steak - and then sell it again - and again - and again - as long as the rubes keep coming back. IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP AND STOP HANDING OVER THE LAUDINUM! "

So, yeah, it's a little scary. You don't know if they're belching or speaking in Klingon, and it can get a little dicey if you don't know your Sulu from your Seven of Nine.

Star Wars people on the other hand are kind of fun. I spent last Saturday with a group that does events for charity: The Cloud City Garrison.


First of all, their costumes are amazing. Darth Vader, Boba Fett, Chewbaca, the stormtroopers, Leia ... absolutely stunning. They put a lot of time and work into making them as real as possible.


Second, these are just the nicest people you could ever run into in any galaxy. They do stuff all over town -- here, Portland, wherever in Oregon you need a better than average meet and greet, and if you get a chance to take your kids to one of their events go.


They do everything for charity. Lucasfilms states that it's all got to be non-profit, which is cool. Honestly, it's amazing to see people actually going to these lengths with nothing to gain for themselves.


So while some Trekkies count their credits and look to trade up on tribbles, the Rebellion and the Evil Empire have joined forces for good, and prove yet again that Yoda was absolutely right:

Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

And in the blue corner, with his mouth open

Tarver Sues Rocky Balboa Bosses
Professional boxer Antonio Tarver is suing the makers of Rocky Balboa for failing to pay him a performance bonus for his role in the movie.

Tarver starred as heavyweight champion Mason 'The Line' Dixon in the 2006 film, opposite Sylvester Stallone.

He claims bosses owe him a bonus based on how much money the movie pulled in, according to a lawsuit filed on Thursday in Los Angeles' County Supreme Court.

Tarver is seeking what he claims he is owed - $1.5 million - plus interest, reports TMZ.com

---

The cousin/roommate had better watch his back. He used Tarver to win a series of devastating knockouts in Fight Night 3.

And, you know, I kind of liked Tarver. He's mouthy, but he seemed to be able to back it up most of the time. Now, I just don't know.

time for one ping only

I'm still downloading pictures -- what? Get off my back! I shot in camera raw! It takes time -- but wanted to remark on the following topical points:

Today's Yahoo news: "Learn about worst-case scenario for swine flu." Right there on the home page. Yesterday while watching The Today Show (what a goofy name for a news program ... The Today Show ... say it slowly, it's weird, isn't it? Intensely simple) -- yesterday while watching The Today Show I got this huge journalist hankering to cut right to the chase and ask the big question:

"But do you think people are worried enough? What steps can they take to be worried more about this possible pandemic?"

Speaking of Chase and cutting to it, I missed House last night and have to wait a full week for it to show up online. This has been my process for spring term, but now that House is going mad I'm really starting to get frustrated with school. Stupit school. I'm missing the only thing worth watching on tv aside from The Dog Whisperer. But, last night I couldn't ditch out because we had our midterm and watched the first part of The Seven Samurai.

Yes, I'm a big nerd. Yes, I love that movie. Yes, I am most identified with Gorobei. But, more important, here is a sampling of what the dudes next to me said as we were leaving:

"Dude, that movie ROCKS!"
"It's totally cool."
"Dude, that's the best movie we've watched in here!"
(note: we've seen only 4, but they were Rashomon, Gate of Hell, Onibaba and Kwaidan, so they didn't suck ... well, Gate of Hell kind of sucked)

They then proceeded to loudly re-enact swordfights on leaving the building.

A most satisfying result.

Cut the chatter Red 5

I'm going to spend the day with characters from Star Wars (it's a photo assignment, so ...). In the meantime, here is the best email I've received in a long time:

Jarno Trulli is now following you on Twitter!

I know it's because I gave him 10 Euros for Abruzzo, but whatever works. Si amo. If you want to give Jarno a donation for Italy you can do so here: http://abruzzonelcuore.org/. They take PayPal and will convert dollars to Euros.

E la...

sorry

School is busy -- midterms ... will I miss them? I just don't know. Just who is Hojo Yasutoki and will I need that information at some point in the future? Maybe. But I just don't feel like studying junk. The sun is out and I just want to ride my bike. Some guy at school yesterday called me a "bike nerd" ("I like bike nerds") and I think he meant it as a compliment because I felt like I didn't quite measure up to it ("oh, no, no, not really").

So school is busy = life is boring. Go here. See this wonderful site. Report back.

Got our stuff back from the cops. It consisted of

1

red

suitcase

Dude, they even swiped the Holy Family scapulars my grandmother had given me in Vegas. They were in the suitcase pocket. What the hell...

THE COPS ARE RELEASING OUR STUFF TODAY!

Excavate National Treasure Show Chinese Culture

If you've been reading along with The Mahoney Family Blog (and if you haven't you've missed out -- it's the only way I travel anymore) you'll know that they've just come back from a tour of Australia and Hong Kong. SA Mahoney always gets me the best travel gifts. She sent me the Checkpoint Charlie chocolate (which melted last summer) and the Robert Kubica F1 shirt (which was destroyed by our dryer ... that last house was hard, hard on my valuables), but this year the travel gift beats all:

The box description is as follows:
Culture Revolution Engraving - The serious of HCG poker
Culture Revolution Engraving affects by special stage. The brand for epoch is obvious. The engraving as the topic of Chairman "Red Classical" which has great value of collections is called "Alive Curio". The poke is chosen 54 pieces of the engravings of Chinaman Mao. (no, I swear, it really says that) It shows historical cultural quintessence. For the people who experienced that period, the engraving Red Classical will be recalled their memory about those days.

Even better is the story of how they were purchased:
I bought those cards at the night market in Hong Kong. Dude, it was like this totally wacky flea market in a dicey part of town, but they had the best stuff! The best part of the whole experience was having to walk through 20 tables full of vibrators to get to the public toilets…because when you travel with a bunch of kids they have to go to the bathroom A LOT!

I loves my friends.

Cap Yer A...

Senior day at the bookstore. I now own a cap and a gown and one of them tassel things. They had these yellow stoles that you're supposed to wear and give out to a professor who made a difference, but I couldn't afford to do that for everyone so I opted out on that and the souvenir tassel, which is not like the real tassel, but like a useless second tassel:

volunteer: "You get a burgundy tassel for the ceremony and you can also buy one of these green and yellow ones as well."
me: "For?"
volunteer: "Uh, for ... whatever ... you can, you know, hang it on things."
me: "Like the rear-view mirror on my Ford Bronco? You know right over the rifle rack."
volunteer: "Uh ..."
me: "It's cool. I'd end up knocking it off during a wild drunk U-turn or something. Where do I pay for the other stuff?"

Now I just have to finish the classes and all. Shouldn't be too hard, right? D is a passing grade. That's all that matters now.

Oh yeah, and it's spring finally and I went and broke my right bike pedal AGAIN. I've waited all this time for spring (since it appears that my rain pants were stolen ... feckers -- that or I've lost them in one of my frequently occurring senior moments) and I'm still on the bus. mother-corker.

yeesh

Hey, why isn't Rob Roy on BluRay yet? It's a passable film and it was on MGM HD last night and it looked pretty good, although I didn't watch it all because I didn't want to see Eric Stoltz get killed in HD before I went to bed. (I had nightmares anyway, but, that's another story.) In fact, parts of it made me really uncomfortable -- did Eric Stoltz have to be so filthy? And Liam Neeson's hair certainly doesn't make a good transition to HD, but it was otherwise more earthy (as the cousin/roommate called it) than the dvd version and you can certainly feel the chilly cold with the details provided by HD (frosty breath from John Hurt, gray Ireland skies passing for Scotland, etc...). All I can think is that unless your movie has Jason Statham, your chances of getting a BluRay version are still pretty slim.

School is really hard, by the way. Have I mentioned? I thought the last term was supposed to be a breeze. I want a ditch day and some senior props, not a bunch of reading about shoguns and theories of Neoclassicism. Photojournalism is particuarly frustrating -- it's like typing class and I'm still looking at the keys, which is fast in the beginning and then ends up mediocre while everyone else gets faster. Here's a picture I took for the photo class. One is with a wide aperture, one is with the small aperture. You have 2 minutes. GO!

Let's see ... go to Vegas or ...

This came in my email today:

ITP CONFERENCE 2009

June 26-28, 2009

Orlando, Florida

• Want to learn about the most up-to-date information on ITP?
• Talk face-to-face with the world's top ITP doctors?
• Find out how to cope with fatigue and other lifestyle issues?
• Meet others with ITP?

I love the questioning last line: Meet others with ITP? Does that mean it's something we can opt out on?

Since we're not one of the most glamorous disorders out there (we don't have walks or telethons or anything fun like that) I'm having trouble imagining why we would have a 2-day conference on it. And will our disorder enable us to get free passes to Disneyland? Will there be a lot of macrobiotic food? It's a mystery. What if we sleep through the seminar on fatigue? But there's also one on "The Healing Power of Reiki" which a psychic told me to get into once. Although she also told me I'd be adopting a dalmatian last year.

More pictures coming to the Flickr. The first photo journalism assignment is due Thursday so yesterday was spent photoing a white toilet seat against a white background. (This is the fun class.) It led to a heated discussion with the cousin/roommate on the limits and uses of auto-exposure. There was much wailing and gnashing of teeth ... so, yeah, business as usual really.

I added Flickr links. I'm so smart. It's the same pictures, sure. What am I? New?

yes.

C'est l'arte

Why are art majors stuck up? "Oh my God, I can't believe there are so many people in here who have never taken an art history class." There was sneer on her face as she said it to the student next to her, as if the field hands had dared to come into the parlor. I know my Degas from my Ingres, little missy. You want to know about Delacroix? I've read his diary. This isn't a contest, which is good for you because I could run you right down, you and your high falooteness. Besides, if the professor is open to teaching the unwashed masses, then who the hell are you? REVOLUTION! LA DEMOCRATIE! ("I told you to speak your mind, Jack, but Jesus...")

Maybe I'm just sensitive and probably still smarting over the idea of News/Editorial being on the low rung of Journalism, like magazine writing is so much better. And when did Advertising pass us up anyway? I blame Mad Men. Television culture shapes us, I know it. My high falooten theory is that television makes society, whether you watch it or not. It's the opium of the mass...oh wait. I'll come up with a new theory ... I'm just sayin', we need Lou Grant to come back on the air and save print. That's all.

Speaking of The Hunt for Red October (which I was above, not directly, but up there) the cops finally called me back about our stuff and the only thing they can confirm they have is my suitcase: "But when you come in to pick it up you can see if there's anything else of yours here." So they might have more than my suitcase, but they're not sure, but there's probably nothing, but just in case they might let us look at things, but there's probably nothing else ... dude. I just want my movies back. How hard is it to definitively say "There is nothing here with Sean Connery in it"?

Experiment 1

Yesterday was camera test day because I wanted to get some photos done before class starts on Tuesday. Let's just say the Nikon does all the work, my friends. These haven't been through Photoshop yet, which is evident in some of them, but for the most part the Nikon takes care of little things like focus n' stuff. I'm very happy that I no longer have to trouble around with fixing red-eye anymore.

landscape

nature close up

"red eye" test

flash glare test

detail focus test (yes, that's Irving Thalberg)

tv photo test (sorry, it's ConAir -- don't ask)

self

All-in-all, very pleasing. You know, maybe this means that the machines really are smarter than the humans and the terminators will take over, but since I can't manually remove flash glare from shiny books I guess I'll be one of those sheep who follows whatever the machines tell me to do.

No, really, I was sick. I wasn't saying ... I mean, I know "Mozart" was saying, but I wasn't saying ... I was just saying I was ... oh ... hell.

Ssay (I')m Ssik

Sorry, little Mozart joke. I miss the BluRay, which is at the real house and not the house-sitting house 4 blocks away. The cousin/roommate got me Amadeus because I scored a 90 on the first econ exam. I know, no one likes it, but F. Murray Abraham is awesome. You don't believe me? Double-feature it with Scarface.

Got the same old weird thing sickness thing that I get, although it seems to be tapering off now. But it's made me not really care about what the pets do or don't do around the house and it turns out that helps with the trials of pet sitting. They were bargaining for space on my flat asleepness last night and I let them haggle it out. Screw it. My energy level is in the red. If I wake up to bits of fur tufts on the floor and the cat licking blood from her claws it's just part of nature's way as far as I'm concerned.

School starts next week, which cuts down on my blogging, but I'm playing with the camera this weekend, which cuts up on the content. We're getting a scanner next week too -- I know! We're, like, joining the 21st century n' stuff! Maybe I can send in some fun things to found.com now.

That's all. I'm at work not working and shouldn't be blogging but it's just part of nature's way as far as I'm concerned. To prove I'm a work, here's one of my favorite customer service e-mails from the past month:

I had gall bladder surgery and was cot on the right side so the only thing holding in my stomack is the flesh. I also tend to walk bent over so I would a suggestion on which product would help me

We sell office supplies. I had no suggestions.

Last night, I didn't get to sleep at all. No. NOOOOO

I'm house-sitting minding the cousin's dog and cat whom I love. I really do. Nessa is a Schnoodle and very sweet although she has a fear of television and watching Bollywood hasn't helped her with that. And Marosa is, hands down, the crankiest cat in the world (or in whole Europe, choose your reference). She's deaf, so she really pumps up the volume on meowing, and it's angry meowing because she's also very old. Imagine you're trapped in an elevator with Beethoven and he really needs a bottle of wine before the DTs kick in. It's like that. I'm constantly shouting back "WHAT?" even though I know she's deaf ... it's a good relationship.

The dog and cat tolerate one another, although the cat would rather not have to tolerate the dog and the dog is sometimes willing to push that button a little and not give in to the cranky cat, but for the most part they move in separate but equal spaces around the house. Marosa usually sleeps upstairs while Nessa takes the bed, but last night they decided they both wanted the bed. It came out something like this:
(Okay, don't make fun of the stick. It was drawn on Microsoft Paint with a Dell Mini ... you try it.) So it was kind of a Yin/Yang set up that seemed to work out fine for them, but left me stiff and cranky this morning, crying like Bach stuck in the elevator with Beethoven.

They've also decided that after 2 days they're going to test my limits and bark at the night and climb on stuff. I expect to find my underwear under the couch and a Schnoodle doodle on the carpet when I get home just to see what I'll do...

Bottom line: I'm definitely a single (pet) girl.

The more things change...

In preparation for potential conversations at a gin party on Friday I've been catching up on the Eurovision finalists at www.eurovision.tv and ... well ... okay here's the thing ... when I worked at Rizzoli in the 80s-90s we used to listen to this kind of stuff all day long (when not listening to Betty Buckley) and it grows on you in a kooky kitschy way, although Rondo Veneziano never really did. But it's like a comfortable coat, europop is. You can put it on any time and the holes are in the same place, but it's just as comfortable as the day you bought it. I mean, honestly, Patricia Kaas is in this year's Eurovision. Doesn't anything ever change over there?

Thank God for those nutty kids in Azerbaijan, that's all I'm saying. They at least try to move things a little forward. Some countries are going backwards, like Ireland. I can understand how maybe a small country like Belarus can be trapped in a cultural timewarp, but Ireland? They gave us U2 and Dustin the Turkey. It's crazy.

Winner of the best euro-biography I've read so far is definitely Finland:

After winning The Finnish Eurovision Song Contest by a clear majority of popular vote, Waldo’s People’s is ready to conquer the dance floor in Moscow with the ultimate dance hit Lose Control. Besides being a radio hit in Finland, the Misko Iho-directed video gained nearly half a million hits in YouTube over one weekend after the Eurovision victory. Waldo’s People is definitely the best europop act in Finland today, if not in whole Europe. The classic dance pop sound of the 90’s is surprisingly becoming fashionable again in the club scene all over. Will the biggest surprise hit in the Eurovision 2009 come from Finland again?

"The best europop act in Finland today, if not in whole Europe" -- I'm not sure what that means in the big picture, but I like it. When I was a kid wanted to grow up to be the Papal See, now I want to be the best europop act in whole Europe.

Something for the Headstone

I passed Yoga.

Actually maybe that should go on the bumper of the car so I can park next to all those crunchy Volvos at Saturday Market and not feel like a chemical poser. Oh yeah, and A+ in Poetry. Take THAT faerie folk! Sure four of the poems were about television, but you go with your strengths. So, let's see, that means I'll graduate with a journalism degree and some grade cred in poetry. Totally marketable assets.

Spring break was fun, all 2 days of it. The people kind of ruined things tho'. Ikea was like running with bulls in Pamplona, but with more carnage and crying. Some woman muscled me into a pallet of plastic boxes and kept on walking. What? Was I blocking you from a sale on the Felaflurs or something? Gie us a break. So we bought a cheese grater, had some meatballs and went over to Portland proper and to Powells where -- shut up -- they had the Shah Rukh Khan (unauthorized?) biography among other treasures. I kept to my list of books so we wouldn't run out the time on the parking meter, but it was difficult. I loves the books.

Oh yeah, then we bought a camera.


Nikon D40. wheet whoo. Yeah, this is someone else's photo of it. Know why? Because I haven't used it yet. Know why? Because I'm afeared of it. The cousin/roommate was letting it run on auto, random point and shoot, and it still took really nicely balanced shots, but he's a photographer and can do that. I point it around on auto and it takes pictures of the insides of my nose just before it breaks off the strap and hits the cat in the head.

This weekend I'll take it out and see if I can get some shots of the Frisbee golfers or something, and then, sure, maybe make the blog a little more interesting and even set up one of those Flickr things. I'm a little worried about toting it to school for class, so (shhh) I'm not going to let on to the professor that I have my own camera and just use the Canons they have for the students. Is that wrong?

Oh, and you thieves out there, it's registered with a driver's license id burned into it, so f-- you.

One Term Weft

Hey laughing boy ...

Finished up Econ yesterday with a solid B (low B on the final, but high B's/low A's on the other stuff, so I figure in my math terms that equals passing). Done. Done. Done.

Oh with one more term to go. We get to use Canon SLR's in the photo class next term. (Wuh -- isn't that what you have?) They're not a bad little camera, but somewhat spendy. I really, really, really, really want one -- can I keep it? Probably not. Maybe this weekend, depending on what comes back from the student loan this term, we'll start camera shopping. I'm running out of patience with the police department here and while we can probably wait longer on the Blu-Rays, not knowing if the camera is even in the crime lab or not is super frustrating. We should upgrade from the Pentax anyway.

These are my justifications and I'm sticking to them. We're buying a Canon.

So Spring Break starts today and I'm going to work and then tomorrow we're going to Ikea in Portland. That's my break. Next week I'm house-sitting for the cousin who is going to Georgia to look for a job with her husband who already has a job. I like their pets much, but their shower will be torn out and they don't have Playstation, but they have gas appliances, so I guess it balances out.

After break it's the last go with U of O. I will be a marketable commodity in 4 months. wee. ha.

Today is a Good Day

AIG bonus scandals -- fah.

How happy am I that Steve-O is still on Dancing With the Stars? He's going to win. You can't beat a professionally trained clown.

March comes in like a lion

Usually in Oregon March comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion. This year it couldn't wait and decided whip up in the middle of the month. Up until now we've just had more of that boring ice and snow (from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow). Today it's really blasting through, which makes it even spookier when I submit to you that this house is haunted.

Yes, I know, I've said it before and been chuckled at, but the lounge chair in the ballroom moved on its own toward the window. I didn't see it move, but the cousin didn't do it and I didn't do it, and unless Veda has developed some super kitten strength, I know she didn't do it. Although, sure, there's always that possiblity. She's scrappy and has started watching television (with a nutty preference for the old Star Trek), so maybe she's got some kind of weird power -- is that more exciting than ghosts ... yeah, I guess it is. Okay, the house isn't haunted.

Speaking of animals doing weird things, I now work for Dunder Mifflin Infinity and hope one day to have earned enough Schrute Bucks to put a plant on my desk. The internet is a wonderful world.

Whoa ... is that the theme song from Stayin' Alive that I hear on the tv...? IT IS

Who's that writin? (john the revelator)

I'm in the student union and it smells funny in here. I suspect it's the young hippy types at the table next to me, but I just sat down so I don't know if it'll look bad to get up again. Pretty soon tho ... it's going to break me down.

Taking a break from writing about Gray Gardens because I'm starting to dream in Little Edie's voice. "It's just like dancing, freedom is" and junk like that. Documentary? Mockumentary? Both or neither? Those are my questions. I saw a clip from the HBO movie with Jessica Lange as Edith Beale and Drew Barrymore as Little Edie -- and I didn't think Drew could do it, really. She's so different, but then she starts talking "it's a skirt, but you can also wear it as a cape" and it's spooky good. I'm trying to talk cousin/roommate into HBO for April, maybe some kind of trial thing that we can easily cancel.

The term is nearly over and senioritis is turning into early nostalgia. I'm going to miss these stinky obnoxious kids. They definitely give color to the day. And I like writing papers. Sure, they get involved sometimes and I dream about them (or about characters in them or as characters in them), but I really like putting down that argument and backing it up with evidence. It's the frustrated lawyer in me. I wish there was some chance that this would turn into a regular reporting gig somewhere, but there's no chance. An editor from the Boston Globe is coming to campus in a few weeks, but I predict he won't have much in the way of hope for us gradueets. Has the San Francisco Chronicle closed yet?

So it goes.

I'll always have dear little blog, home to my thoughts and experiences and ... ... and I can't take it anymore. I'm going outside. I don't care how cold it is. Dude. What generates a smell like that?

This is why we need a camera

I'm taking Photojournalism in the Spring. This is how my cellphone takes a picture. Cows? Dogs? No, they're sheep. I was about 50 ft. away ... maybe.

Dude.

Oh my God, yeah, like, I can't, like, begin to, like, say how much I, like, have, like, totally lost patience with these kids, you know. Like, listening to them, like, talk and stuff, like, about, like, that party last week, that was, like, so totally awesome, and, like, that girl, like, the one, like, with the blonde hair that, like, totally likes Cody, like, remember, like how she, like, got, like, totally drunk. That was SO funny.

I can't relate to 99.9% of this campus.

Yes, Archival Clothing, the apocalypse is coming, although I suspect that when the rapture comes and the minivans will be unmanned all the good French bikes will still have riders and I'll be out of luck.

Don't read the news, YOU'LL KILL YOURSELF!

Our student newspaper is on strike because the university used the economy as an excuse to be unethical (we're running out of revenue ... I know, let's hire some guy at an outrageous salary and put him in charge of the student paper. So what he's not a student. We'll make him journalism school faculty that way the team will be afraid to print bad things about the college).

In a New York Times story about the Amazon Kindle thing Steve Jobs is quoted as saying "the whole concept is flawed at the top because people don't read anymore." I have many objections myself to Kindle, but Steve's take on it wasn't one of them ... until now.

In the Business Day cover story in the same paper is an article about how cable companies are going to start using target advertising without telling you first (except for that wee line item in the Privacy Policy that comes in your monthly statement and that no one reads because the print is written by ants blocking out the letters with inkblot shoes).

Dogs and cats living together, it's mass hysteria. I want a new world.

One size does not fit all

When I was a kid I was heavy into the vintage look. It was the style at the time. In fact, I want to go on record that Natalie Merchant stole the look from me when she was in 10,000 Maniacs. I know, she was on the other side of the country and we never met and our circles didn't exactly overlap, but STILL ... I was totally wearing beltless 40's shifts before she was.

I would haunt a regular round of vintage shops in California looking for the next great party dress (something I could get drunk in an tear a hole through usually), but most of the dresses I tried on were HUGE. They had these giant busty tops and shoulders and waists that needed bunching or scarfing around for a tuck.

I wasn't slim, mind you. I think I've always hovered around the 120 mark ... which is now around the 140... ANYWAY ... I wasn't waify by any stretch and these things were like tents.

Now that I'm shopping for the next great graduation dress everything I'm finding is too f...king small. Who the hell has a 38" bust with a 28" waist? I'm not a giant, but gar ... there's no way, even with a nipper. Oh, but here's one with the 36" bust AND 26" waist. Where was this stuff when I was 22?

Screw it. I'm going to JCrew.